The Not So Secret Trio
by Angelflight
Summary: Norrisville now houses two more schools. Ever since Millard Fillmore Middle School, Casper High, and Norriseville High merged into one school, ghosts, robots, and mythical creatures have stopped appearing. That is, until Danny, Jake, and Randy realize their worst enemies are teaming up.
1. Who are these people?

_"_ _Some heroes are made, some heroes are born, and some heroes are chosen."_

"Who're my bros yo?"

"We're bros yo!"

The two lines of the song repeated over and over again and Daniel Fenton sank in his chair, positive he had memorized every word of the song, and more. Ever since the district had decided to merge three schools together into one huge one, Danny has sat through two talent shows, three school spirit assemblies, and at least ten 'sorry for the inconvenience' assemblies. It was hard for Danny to see Sam and Tuck, although whenever he could, he'd run to their classes across the other side of the school and say hi. He even went ghost a few times when he had to talk to familiar faces. Despite the -now three- principals' hopes, the school was still divided by the three 'sub-schools'. It just happens to be that Danny got the 'lucky straw' and got put in the section of the school they select a 'special few' that get to take classes there instead of with friends.

"I loved it. Like always, bros." An overly happy, but somewhat sarcastic, voice addressed the group of teens on stage.

"I hated it. All seven words." The second judge said, and about a third of the crowd got to their feet and shouted with the kid, "OFF MAH STAGE!"

Danny facepalmed and sunk lower into his seat. He was about to ask a question, but the kid sitting next to him got to it before him.

"When's this over?" Danny glanced over, the kid looked about 13 and had black hair with dark green highlights that might or might not be natural. He had his hand on his chin and was staring blankly ahead.

"My question exactly." Danny sat up and addressed the 13-year-old, "I mean, only seven words in the entire two hour song."

The kid looked over at Danny and looked him over, "I know right? I'm about ready to ditch this snoozefest." he gestured to the stage, "I mean, a couple of nobodies are judging. I heard they're from Norrisville High." He then held out a hand to Danny, "Name's Jake Long."

Danny thought for a moment, then shrugged and shook his hand, "Daniel Fenton. My friends call me Danny."

Jake studied Danny for a moment, and Danny studied him back. They could instantly tell that something was otherworldly about the other person sitting next to them. After a moment, Danny pulled away. As soon as Danny pulled away, his ghost sense went off. He looked at Jake, "...I... haveta... go to the restroom!" Danny got up and shuffled his way out of the crowd of bored teens and ran behind the exit wall.

"Going ghost!" He whispered, and his characteristic blue rings passed his face and he was in his, well, characteristic black and white outfit with his white D logo. "At least I can skip this stupid assembly." He talked to himself. He paused, this is the first time since the school merge he'd have to fight anything. Danny shook his head and phased through the wall, going into the -'talent hall' as it was called- invisible. Danny scanned the area, sure that _something_ was amiss. As Danny scanned the crowd, he noticed that there was only one judge, also that the kid, Jake?, was gone too. Strange. Danny flew above the crowd to the stage and stood on it, still invisible. "Hey!" an empty juice box flew through Danny's face into the band geek behind him. Danny flew over to the bully, who actually looked surprisingly similar to Flash, and picked up a piece of popcorn from the floor and tossed it in his face.

The bully flinched, but went back to sneering a minute later. Danny shrugged and spotted Sam and Tucker in the audience. He smiled and pulled the 'Fenton phones' out of his invisible pockets and flew over to them, setting the set of phones on their laps. Danny put one phone in ear and set the other on Jazz's lap (who was sitting next to them), Danny only brought two pairs with him to school today. Besides, He was sure they'd be willing to chat. Danny phased through the roof and landed on top, becoming both tangible and visible again.

"Hey Danny. Anything happening?" Sam's sarcastic voice sounded through the phone and Danny nearly jumped.

"Nah, nothing yet. My ghost sense went off, but something's odd lately." Danny replied, looking over the edge of the roof into the parking lot, nothing there.

"Odd how?" Tucker asked

Danny rolled his eyes, "You know, me being in school and making my 10 'o clock curfew?"

"Huh. I guess we just _haven't seen enough of you lately_... To notice." Sam was obviously mad, even if Danny couldn't see her face.

"Now that you mention it..." Jazz joined in, "I haven't seen Ghost X or Crate Creep in a while."

Danny facepalmed, "You seriously need naming help Jazz. Can't believe you're still calling them those names." Danny then spotted something fly past at a high speed, it looked like a robotic elf that glowed with a greenish aura. "Wait. I found something" He told his friends and stood, watching the robot fall to the roof.

Just as suddenly as the elf came in, a teenage-like figure clad in black and red with a bright red scarf did a few pointless frontflips across the rooftop. Quickly after the ninja-like teenager appeared, a bright red dragon decided to join the fight.

"What's going on?" Tucker's voice came back on the phones.

"Looks like a dragon and a ninja fighting a ghost-possessed robotic elf." I replied truthfully, "But they don't look together."

"A... Dragon?" Jazz's voice sounded firm, "ADanny. I'll believe in ghosts, but _dragons_? That's a bit of a stretch, even for _your_ imagination."

"I'm not lying!" Danny watched as the Ninja seemed to be fighting both creatures, and vise versa with the dragon. "I have to stop this before it gets too crazy."

"Good luck man, don't get fried." Tuck's reassuring comment penetrated the half a second pause in the conversation.

"Thanks for the confidence there Tuck." Danny replied before jumping into the battle.

Before Phantom could jump in, the robot got tossed into Danny. Danny quickly phased and barely missed the most-likely-10-ton robot falling on him. The ninja and Dragon paused when they saw Danny. Danny nervously smiled and waved, then felt the elf get a choke hold on him. Danny tried to phase, but the ghost possessing it knew he'd try that, and took countermeasures. Somehow it had gotten its hands on a Fenton product, one of the many that Danny had seen his Dad throw into the trash a while back. Danny kicked and struggled, then remembered. Overshadowing. Duh. Even if phasing and overshadowing seemed similar, but were slightly different.

Ignoring the ninja and dragon for a moment, Danny literally headbutted the ghost out of the robot and Danny got free as the robot stopped moving. He flew up and followed the escaped ghost as he looked around, and saw that the Ninja had a Fenton thermos. Danny shook his head, how were these teens getting his Dad's stuff? Danny glanced at the ghost and dove down to the ninja, attempting a grab at the thermos.

"Nnnnnninja dodge!" The ninja dodged Danny smoothly, "Hey man, do you know who you just tried to steal from?" The ninja's voice sounded familiar, but Danny couldn't put a finger on it.

"Uhhhhh a teen attempting to be a ninja? Don't you know who I am?" Danny set himself down and faced the other teens.

The ninja looked Danny up and down, but the dragon got there before he did, "A kid trying to be a ghost?"

Danny jumped as the dragon talked, "You can talk?"

"Aww hell yeah!" The dragon's voice sounded familiar too. Danny studied the dragon.

"Now that you mention it..." Danny went up and down the dragon again, "You look familiar too."

"Sorry to interrupt the reunion, but our target is getting away!" Where the ninja pointed a bunch of water-colored, crayon-like arrows appeared and danced around the ghost (the ghost looked strangely like an elf sticking its tongue out).

"Woah!" Danny blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes.

"Either I'm tripping or there are floating, moving arrows pointing to that elf." the dragon said what Danny was going to say.

"What? You can see what the Ninja Nomicon says?"

"Ninja whatacon?" Danny looked at the ninja in confusion.

"Ninja Nomicon. You know?" The ninja gestured wildly a few times, "The Ninja Nomicon. The biggest source on all secret knowledge of ninjakind?" The ninja took out a big black and red book from his bag.

Danny looked it over, "If any consolation, it matches your outfit." Danny looked back at the ghost, it was starting to look bored. "Hey, ninja or whatever you are, give me the Fenton Thermos."

" _The_ Ninja mind you! Why do you need it?"

Danny looked at the ninja in exasperation, "That's a ghost." he pointed to the ghost, still flying in the air, "That's a containment unit invented by d- er Jack Fenton to catch ghosts."

The dragon looked at Danny, then the ghost, then the ninja, then back to Danny and pointed to the ghost, "Isn't that an elf?"

Danny looked at the dragon, "elf? Elves don't exist."

"Seriously? You're looking at a dragon."

"And I'm a ghost, tell me something I don't know."

"The thing's getting away! Too long of a peptalk! I'll go catch it." The ninja glared at the ghost elf and said, "nnninja scarf lasso!" he grabbed the scarf and threw it at the ghost, passing through it.

Danny rolled his eyes, "Guess we'll have to just," He turned to the ghost and shot an ice beam, "put it on ice!" The ghost froze into a block of ice and fell to the roof like a brick. "Now if you just give me the thermos-"

"No." The ninja strode over to the ghost, "I would ask the Nomicon but he's mad at me right now. What is this?" he pointed to the ice block.

"A ghost." "An elf!" Danny and the dragon said at the same time, then glared at each other.

"Let's pause and unschnastify this, okay?" The ninja separated the two boys and said, "I'm The Ninja. Chosen once every 4 years by the Ninja Nomicon to protect _the universe_." He posed a superhero pose then said, "Or maybe just Norrisville High."

Danny looked from left to right, then sighed, "I'm Danny Phantom. A ghost if you couldn't tell."

"Nothing interesting? Where you from?" The Ninja asked Danny.

Danny paused, "not really." He lied, "I'm from Casper High."

"I'm the American Dragon. From a long line of chinese dragons, the first true American dragon, I might add."


	2. Bonding

The trio paused awkwardly, then the ninja called "That's bruce guys but you know what's the _cheese_ at Norrisville? SMOKEBOMB!" and disappeared leaving the ghost and the dragon alone in surprisingly smelly red smoke.

"You do look familiar," Danny held air quotes, "'American Dragon'."

The dragon looked Danny over, "Yeah, you look like someone I just meet, similar name even. You know someone named Danny _Fenton_?"

Danny gasped and held his breath, then let out a small, "Do you know Jake Long? He has the same... style as you."

They then looked in each other's eyes again, and the dragon said, "Yeah, I knew we were gonna be best friends."

Danny let out his breath, "At least my I know my secret will be safe with you." Danny motioned to the edge, "We should probably go back to that boring assembly before we're missed."

Jake pointed at Danny casually, "That might be a good idea. My grandpa'll be furious when he finds out you know my human self by the way."

"Wait until you meet Sam." Danny sighed.

Suddenly a mix of red lightning and fire holographically appeared around Jake blended with The Ninja's smoke remains, and when it cleared, he was a teen in a black and red jacket again. Danny picked Jake up and phased through the wall into the hallway, setting Jake down before turning human himself.

"You know, this is the first time I've meet a ghost like you." Jake commented when the blue rings disappeared.

"Yeah, I've meet a ghost girl that turns into a rampaging dragon with anger issues... So, you're the second for me" Danny landed and headed to the theater, "Speaking of identities, who do you think the ninja is? If we can get him on board, we can be..." Danny paused as he thought of a name, "The Secret Trio! Or something."

"Secret Trio?" Jake asked, "Sounds like a chick flick if you ask me." He gestured to the seats and they squished through the many teens to their chairs.

Danny and Jake waited for the assembly to be over, at least another hour of droning and apologies, along with the judges from the talent show being up on stage bowing like idiots. Their names were Randy and Howard, or maybe Sandy and coward, or something of that sort. Danny couldn't tell from his seat if they were guys or girls.

Soon enough, the assembly was over and a crackling voice came through the almost forgotten Fenton phones, "Get your butt over here and EXPLAIN YOURSELF!" Jazz made Danny literally jump above the heads of the crowd, and he recovered, earning an odd look from Jake too.

"Jazz wait until dinner, I can explain then." Danny replied, annoyed.

"Whose that? Your sister? Sounded like it." Jake said and shrugged.

"Ho- right. Mythical dragon hearing must be better than human hearing." Danny face palmed, then thought. _Dragon_. Of course! He turned to face Jake, startling him in the process, "Hey. Jake."

"Yeah...?" Jake replied hesitantly.

"This is totally random, but we should team up."

"Isn't that a given?"

"I mean, actual partnership, I show you my cool gadgets and you show me yours. Like our tricks and stuff." Danny held out a hand with a mischievous smile, "who're my bros yo?"

Jake looked like he was liking the idea of having an invisible, intangible buddy being able to raid the lunchroom for free everyday, then said, "first of all, I've heard enough of that song for a lifetime," he held out a hand and mirrored Danny's facial expression, "however, we're bros yo."

"Okay, so first and only real rule in the family." Jake started and Danny spotted Jazz giving him a good stare from the side, like a beam of pure curiosity and rage mixed together. "Dad's the only one that doesn't know that I'm a dragon, and that has to stay that way. Oh, not to alarm you, but Foo Dog..."

Danny had stopped paying attention to Jake and had a silent conversation with Jazz, Sam, and Tuck. ... _But he_ is _a dragon!_ Danny was saying

 _This scrawny kid? Sorry Danny, but he doesn't look like a dragon._ Sam pulled a book from her favorite book store the Skulk and Lurk that read DRAGONS in neat font on its cover.

 _Do I look like a ghost?_ Danny retorted.

 _Anyways Danny, why are we following this guy again?_ Tucker gestured to Jake's back (who was now talking about her sister having no control of her dragon side or something).

Danny shrugged, _we decided that we'd share our houses and friends and such._

 _Great. Next we'll have a rhyming contest with the Ghost Writer!_ Sam sighed like she just ran a marathon, her sarcasm evident even if they weren't actually talking.

"Hey guys, sorry for the bubble burst, but we're here" Jake stopped in front of an old VCR repair shop. It was obviously old and not visited often. Tuck coughed awkwardly, and two teens walked into the store after the girl glanced at Jake and giving him a good, angry stare. Jake shrugged and opened the door for Danny and 'the crew'.

Well, Danny didn't think about his _family_ being dragons, but it seemed pretty clear now that he knew. Sure sure, Jake _said_ that his family was all dragons, but Danny had to see for himself to believe it. Oh boy did he see it. You betcha he believed it now.


	3. Supernatural Race

Danny looked around, not knowing his jaw was open like a fish. Jazz thankfully -and quickly- walked over and closed his mouth.

"Hey, it isn't _that_ strange is it?" Jake asked, concerned and confused.

Danny shook his head, blinked a few times, and looked around. Ignoring all of the mess, Danny saw a dog on two legs talking to an old-looking chinese dragon pinning something to a wall. The dragon looked over, jumped, and quickly turned into an old man and the dog fell to four legs, letting out a pathetically fake 'woof'. The dog then narrowed his eyes, stood up and strode to Danny.

"Whatchu see ain't real." He waved his paw in Danny's face, "You're dreamin. You did not just see a huge dragon, this is all fake, we were practicin a show..." the dog kept making excuses in a barrage of hypnotic-like words.

"Fu dog, this is Daniel Fenton, Danny for short." Jake stepped up, stopping the dog's string of words. "He knows already. In fact, he's a ghost."

"Ummm..." Danny regained his voice and pointed to himself, "Half-ghost. heh."

The dog, Fu, stopped and replied, "Oh, the old man's gonna be furious." Fu turned to Jake and casually pointed to Danny, "You let him know?"

"He just guessed!" Jake replied and Danny's 'backup' backed up, they knew they should stay out of this for a little bit.

The old man strode into the room and looked up at Danny, "Jake."

"Yeah, I know Grandpa. I'm sorry, but he's a _ghost_ what was I supposed to say?" Jake retaliated, "He could, like, haunt me forever or something!"

"I don't haunt people!" Danny looked offended, "I just... beat up other bad ghosts."

The old man stood on his tiptoes, "You're a ghost? You don't look like one." he poked Danny.

"Hey!" Danny stepped back, "You don't look like a dragon, plus I'm human until I go ghost, hence the _half-ghost_ label? What should I call you anyways, _Gramps_ doesn't seem appropriate."

The old man paused and eyed Danny, "I'm Long Lao Shi, you may call me Lao or master."

"I'd prefer Lao over master." Danny retorted and suddenly his ghost sense went off.

"What's that?" Jake, Fu, and Lao all asked at once.

"I call it my ghost sense, it senses when ghosts are around." Danny replied quickly and looked around.

Suddenly a familiar voice penetrated the area, "I am the BAOX ghost! FEAR ME!" and the Box ghost floated into the house, "I want your old..." He squinted to the nearest box and read it out slowly, "Video Cassette Recorder boxes!" The boxes floated with his ghostly power.

Fu squeaked, "g-ghost!"

"That Idiot!" Danny said the same time Fu squeaked, letting the _talking_ dog regain some honor. "Going ghost!" his infamous blue rings appeared, and when they were done, he had his more famous ghost half appearance. Danny floated up to the box ghost, "Really? Don't you have _anything_ better to do?"

The box ghost looked around, then at Danny, "No, not particularly."

"Dragon up!" Danny glanced over at Jake as he turned into his red dragon.

"Dude, I've got this. He's, like, the least powerful ghost in the entire ghost realm."

"Oh, he just got dissed." Tuck weaved into the conversation and tossed Danny the thermos, then weaved his way back out of talking.

Danny caught the thermos easily and opened it, catching the ghost quickly. As soon as Danny landed, Lao snatched the thermos and looked it over. "What is this?" He asked, Jake went back human and stood next to him.

"That's the Fenton Thermos. My parents sometimes make mistakes that help me." Danny smiled like he made a hilarious joke, and Sam, Tuck, and Jazz giggled in memory of their screw-ups.

"Can I borrow this?" Fu dog snatched it out of Lao's hands and started fiddling with it.

"Um, not that one!" Danny flew over and snatched it out of the dog's hands, floating for a minute, "I'll have to catch the box ghost all over again!"

"I have an extra!" Jazz jumped forward and gave Fu dog the extra thermos.

"So what kind of magic do you guy's have?" Danny turned to Jake and landed.

"Oh I have-" Jake was cut off by his grandpa,

"Let's train." Lao smiled.

"Aw man! Now grandpa?!" Jake complained.

"Yes, now."

Danny looked at his friends then back at Lao, "I'm guessing its super-secret dragon training that my friends are not allowed to attend?" Lao nodded, "Okay" Danny flew over to his sister and friends, "I'll contact you if I have trouble." He handed them a pair of Fenton phones, then went to put some in his ears and Tuck interrupted.

"You don't need them Danny, I upgraded ours."

"Upgraded?"

"Yeah, we can hear you from anywhere we want, look we can even see where you're at." Tuck ran over and showed Danny his PDA and a green submarine-like radar on it's screen.

"How-"

"I merged the Fenton Ghost Detector," He paused, "or whatever stupid name your dad gave it... and my PDA, so we can see your location and hear you from afar!" Tucker looked at Danny with a grin on his face.

"Great. Now you guys can hear all of my conversations!"

"Exactly!"

"Daniel!" Lao shouted as he was walking out the door and it sent shivers down Danny's spine.

"I prefer Danny, Mr. Lao! Only my archenemy calls me Daniel." Danny replied and turned back to Tuck, "That's great, I'll talk to you guys later. If _you_ need help, just call my cell." Danny pulled his cellphone out from nowhere, waved it, and put it back into whatever pocket he got it from and followed Lao outside.

"First, we meet at your school." Lao started walking towards the school, "I'll meet you there."

Danny glanced over at Jake who grinned and turned into a dragon, "Race ya?"

Danny mirrored hi grin, "You think you can beat my 100+ MPH? You're on!"


	4. Prisoners

Soon enough they were at the school, Danny was huffing slightly while Jake was wheezing. "Dude," Danny flew over to him, "work on endurance, you're way out of shape."

"Hey, I have to concentrate to keep this form! I've never gone that fast either!"

Danny shrugged and landed on the roof, Lao was already sitting there drinking tea. Danny glanced over as Jake landed, rapidly attempting to get his breath back.

"You're out of shape Jake." Lao stated, "the ghost got here faster than you."

"B-but he's a gho-"

"No but's young dragon. 50 fire-ups."

Jake grumbled and got on the ground and started doing sit-ups, breathing a small white flame each time he touched his knees, and started counting.

"Hah!" Danny pointed to Jake and laughed, "Sucks to have a master doesn't it?"

Lao stood up, "Don't think you've skipped out on this training, ghost."

Danny glanced over at Lao, "No? Not like you can boss _me_ around."

"How about a sparring match?"

"With him?" Danny looked at Jake who was at around 20 of his exercise.

Lao laughed, "No, not that one. _I'm_ challenging you, ghost!"

"Um, half-ghost first of all, second of all, no." Danny looked around, "I could barely beat a ghost dragon, much less a _real_ masterdragon!"

Suddenly a small fly-like object zipped past Danny's face and flew to Jake, "American Dragon!" it _said_.

Jake stopped his fire-ups and looked at Lao with a grin, "Dragon time, 'sup sprite?"

Danny landed and walked over, "sprite?" He took a closer look at the bug, and realized it was actually a red-headed sprite with green wings.

"It's horrible!" The sprite continued in rapid words way too fast to understand.

"Woah, slow down there." Jake calmed the sprite down, "One word at a time."

The sprite took a deep breath and repeated what he said slightly slower, "A pointy-haired demon ghost stole one of us!"

"Pointy haired..." Jake started

"...Demon _ghost_." Danny finished, and rubbed his chin, "Did he have a cape?" The sprite looked over and nodded rapidly, "White outfit?" Another nod, Danny started forming a picture in his mind, "Red Eyes? Black gloves and boots? Glowing? Male?" A final nod, and Danny sighed.

"What? You know him?" Jake asked.

"Yeah, yeah. He sounds like Vlad Plasmius."

"Plasmius? Psh, classic bad-guy name."

"Pretty much." Danny nodded and flew back over to Lao with an invisible sigh of relief, "Guess we'll have to battle some other day."

Lao eyed Danny, "Yes. Seems so. Go save the sprite." He dismissed the two teens with a wave of his hand.

Danny glanced over at Jake, then back to the sprite, "Lead the way."

The sprite was surprisingly quick, maybe the possibility of their brethren being torchered sped him along. Danny didn't have a problem with keeping up, but Jake was ever so slowly falling behind.

"Jake, come on man. You have got to be one of the biggest noobs I know when it comes to superhero-ing."

"Well, let's just say that this is like you running a marathon, then doing a hundred push-ups, then another race." Jake retaliated.

Danny paused for a moment and thought, "Seems tough. Luckily I don't have to do any of that" Danny grinned, "Want me to carry you or something?"

"What? The dragon carries the ghost, not the other way around." Jake sounded hurt.

"Well, what about a ghost carrying a human? We have to catch up." Danny pointed to the sprite, who was starting to look like a bug again.

Jake stopped and flapped in place, "Okay, but next time I carry you."

Danny grinned, at least they could follow the sprite now. Danny would rather fight Vlad than a dragon master. Danny caught Jake as he transformed human, and followed after the sprite. "Going to go a bit fast, make sure not to fall."

"Dude, I'm a _dragon_ I have _wings_ if I fall."

"Not what I meant. Want to go back to fire-ups or help a sprite?"

"...Sprite." Jake grumbled a reply after a second and crossed his arms.

~Quite a bit of a flight later ;3~

"I'm starting to question if this sprite knows where he's going." Danny said, finally starting to show his loss of breath in a few puffs. He'd been flying at near his maximum speed for over an hour.

"Same here." Jake replied, still being carried. Suddenly Danny's ghost sense went off and Danny stopped, turning around 180 degrees. "What's wrong?"

"Ghost sense. Vlad's near." Danny preemptively dropped Jake, causing the thirteen-year-old to let out a yelp and quickly transform into a dragon.

"What's that for?" Jake flew back up to Danny and stayed in spot.

"Vlad Plasmius." Danny spotted his nemesis, just as Vlad did the same.

"Ahh, Daniel Phantom. Long time no see, child. You like my sprite collection?"


	5. Robots Shmobots

"Viceroy!" A loud voice caught the attention of the teens and... _adult_. "How does _my_ brilliant invention work?" The man called loudly, emphasising the _my_ way too much.

"Well Mr. McFist. If you _made_ the darn thing, why don't _you_ control it?" An overly sarcastic tone replied.

"I know how! Just wanted to make sure you knew how!"

"Mm-hmm. Okay then, give me the controls."

The ghosts and dragon looked in the direction of the voices curiously, only to find nothing. As soon as Danny turned back to Vlad -dismissing the random conversation- a massive robot appeared out of nowhere, snatching the pixie and swatting Vlad away. Danny and Jake blinked a few times, then processed what had happened. Jake was first to respond, chasing after the grabber-arm, then Danny followed. Why would a robot want the pixie? Skulker? He flew past Jake and shot a quick energy beam at the bot, taking off the arm that held the pixie. Relatively weak metal for a ghost, besides, they didn't put a shield up or anything. Danny glanced behind him to spot that Jake had caught the pixie, safely carrying it to the ground. Phantom nodded and flew down to the robot, this would be an easy clean-up.

Danny jerked to the left as a missile whizzed past him, he stopped and watched the missile for a second, then froze it. He turned back to the robot, curious at its actions, then quickly went intangible, narrowly avoiding another flying projectile. When he became tangible again, Danny rushed to the robot and knocked on the cockpit, floating quite high from the ground. Pretty tall robot. "Hey, I was just wondering, you don't happen to be a ghost named... Oh, let's say... Skulker?"

"Skulker?" The answerer questioned then paused, "VICEROY WHO'S THIS SKULKER THE KID'S TALKING ABOUT?!"

"You don't have to shout Hannibal. You'll make a scene." The other voice, Viceroy (as Danny presumed), replied. "Tell me something... Inviso-Bill? I think I've heard of you before. Anyways, that _is_ a pixie, yes?"

Danny facepalmed and addressed the more serious issue, "It's not Inviso-Bill, I have a name. Danny Phantom."

"Ooo I like this kid." The first voice answered.

"Mm-hmm. It would be beneficial to make a robot that's identical to him."

"Yo! Ghosty! Dis guy thinks he's all that, we should take him down a notch or two don't you think?" Jake's voice cut through the conversation Danny was having. Danny turned away from the robot, suddenly remembering Vlad as well.

"Oh right! Love to stay and chat guys, but I'll be needing this." Danny temporarily turned to the dismantled robot, then flew over to Jake, snatching the pixies from him. He then turned to Plasmius and sent a ghost ray, which bounced off Vlad's perfectly timed ghost shield.

From the corner of his eye, Phantom spotted the robot shoot a missile right at Jake. Startled, Danny dashed to Jake, only to be surprised when the dragon simply bashed the rocket to the side via tail. "Pah! You think a mere missile can take down _The American Dragon_!" Danny rolled his eyes when Jake made the statement.

The halfa turned to Vlad and asked, "Why're you so quiet all of the sudden Vladdy? Ghost got your tongue?"

"No. I just want my pixies!" He dashed forward, grabbing the pixies' from Danny's loose grasp, "Thank you!" Almost sing-songy-like he floated away a few steps. He then started to fly off.

As soon as Danny followed, three things happened. First, that one annoying robot shot another missile. Next, it was suddenly cut in half. Third, the pixies were out of Vlad's hands.

"Oh these little things? But they're so cute! Who would want to hurt them? That's just mean!" For a second, Danny imagined the judge from the talent show, then shook it off to notice that a ninja clad in black was on the scene. Sorry, _The Ninja_.

"NINJA!" the robot -McFist was it?- suddenly shouted loudly and randomly shot a barrage of missiles, as if it was an air strike. Danny turned intangible, then remembered Jake and flew over, turning him intangible too. The boys watched as the ninja dodged all of the missiles, then neatly cut the robot in half.

"And that, my boys, is a _Ninja destroy-robot-while-taking-a-barrage-of-missiles_." He hopped up to the rooftops, "A Ninja exclusive!"

Danny let go of Jake and slowly flew over to the ninja. "Hey, can I have those?" The teen asked -he thought that this ninja seemed pretty trustworthy, even though he might be obnoxious.

"Um, let me think... No! You'll just hurt them!" He looked into the cage again, then unlocked it.

The pixies instantly dashed over to Jake. "American Dragon! You came to save us!"

"Woah woah woah woah, one at a time pixies, this dragon need its space too!" Jake replied as he grinned, a day well done in his books.

"Waitwaitwait a second, _I'm_ the one who saved you, not this..." He paused and looked at Jake, "...Dragon." His eyes widened, "Wait, you're an _actual_ dragon? Not some robot that's freakishly realistic?"

"Hell yeah! I'm no fake!" Jake landed on the rooftop in front of the ninja, "Does this look fake to you?" He blew a ring of fire around the ninja's feet.

Instantly, the ninja jumped around, "Ow! Hot!" When the fire died, he looked up at Phantom, "So.. You're a real... _Ghost_?"

Danny floated down next to Jake. "And let me guess, you're a _real_ ninja. Not a wannabe." He said almost sarcastically.

The ninja took a few steps back, "Well, that's enough weirdness for one day. I'm outta here. SMOKEBOMB!"

Danny coughed, "Does he have to use the smokebomb?"

"Does he _have_ to be captain obvious?" Jake said in pretty much the same tone.


	6. Test Galore!

"Yo, Danny, you okay man?" Tucker waved a hand in the adolescent's face.

"Wait what? Were you saying something?" Danny started, snapped out of his thoughts.

"You've been like this all day." Sam replied, worried.

"Correction, he's been like this since _yesterday_." Jazz added to the conversation.

"Sorry guys, I've just been thinking." Fenton sighed again. All he had been thinking about was how hectic everything had been the day before. He had been so distracted by this... _ninja_ guyDanny didn't even notice that both the mysterious robot _and_ Vlad had escaped.

"Look, Danny, we know how you must feel." Tuck looked over at Danny. "What we gather from your conversations make it sound confusing."

Danny smiled, "Well, you have this stalker thing down now."

"You bet! I'm not letting my little brother take all the fun!" When Danny spotted Jazz, she was obviously high in spirits.

"Thanks guys. I guess it was a good idea to walk to school together."

"Even though Tucker took forever to leave his house." Sam intervened.

"Hey! I _have_ to have the right gadgets for the day or I'd fail the test!"

"Test?" Danny asked, suddenly confused.

"Yeah, you know, that _humongous_ test that everyone must pass to graduate?" Danny shook his head at Tucker's words, "The one we've been talking about since last Monday...?"

As it slowly sank in, Danny also slowly realized he was so screwed. He hadn't known there was a test, much less this large of one. Much less study! "Ohhhhh... I swear, this superhero-ing business takes way too much time out of my precious teenage life."

"Danny! I _told_ you to study!" Jazz sounded disappointed and mad at the same time. She always had a good way of blending the two emotions.

"Was I ever listening?" Danny retorted, "Besides, I've been...?" He thought for a moment, for once in his life he _wasn't_ busy that week.

"Exactly." Jazz replied matter-of-factly.

"Don't worry though Danny, we can help you cram." Tucker looked like he knew what he was doing, but Danny never was very good at flash-memorizing.

"You think I can stay home today?" Danny asked, worried.

"Well, most likely, but I wouldn't advise it Danny." This time it was Sam who spoke up. "You already have half the year 'absent'."

Danny sighed in defeat, Sam was always good at giving the facts out.

"Besides, I'm sure you'll do fine." Sam smiled.

"No pressure." Tuck grinned at Danny.

"'cuz, you know, not like your future depends on it." Jazz hammered down the last point.

~Time skip to lunch :D~

Danny stood in the lunch line, which seemed to be growing at a ridiculous pace, even for high school. He ducked behind the tables when he spotted Dash, who had teamed up with two other kids, one had brown hair, the other had brown hair that defied gravity. Ever since the school had merged, the three bullies had come together and ruled the school. Most likely the smartest thing they would ever come up with.

"Hey, whatchu doin Fenton?" Danny jumped when he heard the voice, then turned to see Jake.

"Oh god Jake. You scared me." He sighed, "Don't do that again man."

"Seriously, what _are_ you doing?" He crouched down too, then the teens took a step forward with the line.

"You see that blondie over there?" Danny pointed to Dash.

"What, that guy standing next to Brad? What 'bout him?"

"Yeah, he's the bully from Casper, and he hates me."

"Why don't you kick his as- Oh, right. same reason I can't beat up Brad." Jake reached for a subject change, "So, what do you think of this exam?" The boys took a step forward in the line.

Danny jumped on board with the suggestion and replied, "Well... I want to stay home."

"Yeah, same here."

"You know when we're taking it?"

"I heard Trixie say right after lunch."

"Well, you want to cram with us?"

"Trixie and Spud said they'd help out."

"Why don't you bring them? The more the merrier."

"Sure, I can ask them if they wanna." The two took another step forward, almost into the room.

"Cool, we sit over there." Danny gestured to the back left corner of the room, where Sam was eating her turfburger and Tuck was chowing down a stake. Don't ask Danny how they got the stuff, most likely brought it from home.

"Alrighty, see ya there." Jake stood up and continued in line like nothing happened. Which, nothing _did_ happen.

Daniel sighed and got his lunch, then arched around the bullies to Sam and Tucker.

"I'm tellin ya Jakie, I don't like the vibes coming off of these guys." Danny stopped watching out for the bullies and spotted Jake talking to a young lady and man. The girl had spoken to Jake, and Danny didn't like what she was getting at.

"Maybe they're.. like... Aliens." Danny wasn't sure what the kid in the beanie was talking about.

"Trixie, you have to trust me." It was Jake replying to the girl, "you were in the back when he visited, but he's truly a nice kid. I'm sure Danny's friends are okay. At least try it out first."

"Yeeeaaa don't knock it till you try it Trixie!" The teen in the beanie kinda sounded drunk, but he most likely wasn't.

Just as Danny stood up to confront the teens and reassure that he wasn't an alien, something fell onto his head. Pausing, Danny reached up and felt the slime that had befallen his black hair. He took a deep breath in and slowly looked up.


	7. More and More Problems

The entire room turned their heads as the beast roared. Still processing the size, color, and oddness of the creature, Danny was slow to respond to the sound. It was obviously there to cause havoc, which it did. Quite well actually. Danny turned away from the purple shape and spotted Jake among the panicking students. Danny dashed to his buddy and came to a stop next to him.

"What _is_ that?" Jake asked before Danny could, "Can't be a troll. It's the wrong color and they wouldn't expose themselves to public places."

"My ghost sense didn't go off. Can't be someone from beyond the portal."

"SMOKEBOMB!"

Both teens turned to the voice and spotted the orangey cloud disperse, revealing the ninja they had been encountering lately.

"Stand back civilians! This is a job for The Ninja!" The ninja had been standing on the table as he said it, but a second later he was whipped across the room via monster arm.

Danny and Jake took this opportunity to run into hiding and switch to their alter-egos.

"Jake wait." Danny said to Jake before the boys changed, "You shouldn't dragon up."

"Why not?"

"School. Kids. Witnesses. Secret." Danny listed off the reasons using his fingers as the counter. "I can be seen, only because everyone already knows something about me. Plus, your whole thing about _protecting_ not revealing right?"

Jake visibly deflated, then nodded. Danny sighed and changed into Phantom. As soon as he did, a bunch of crayon words appeared in front of Danny. "Do you see those?"

"See what?"

"Those crayon words!"

"Danny, I don't see anything. Well, minus that ninja guy getting pummeled by a purple monster."

The halfa shook off Jake's words and read the text the crayon spelled out loud, "When one is not human but in control, the text is revealed to the chosen soul."

"Wow, it rhymed."

"That it did Jake." Danny replied and pondered the words themselves. It seemed obvious, but it was written weirdly so he couldn't be positive what it meant. This kind of writing always seemed to have a double meaning. Suddenly, the words danced off and rapidly pointed to the ninja, urging something.

"Nomicon! Why you pointing to me? What do I destroy to destank Bucky!" The ninja responded to the text, who then turned to the monster stating there was... _nothing_. "Well then how do I destank him?" The ninja pulled away from his intense beat-up session and watched the text point straight at Danny.

Danny immediately jumped when the text revealed where he was and the ghost waved, nervous. "Hello."

"Hey... your that... ghost kid!"

Danny then facepalmed, "Yes yes, it's me. Call me by my name, Danny Phantom, would you?"

The monster suddenly ignored, the conversation was handed back to the ninja, "Wait, _you're_ Danny Phantom. _you_?" He asked, disbelief in his voice, "I thought the famous ghost from Amity Park be taller." He paused, "And not an actual ghost. Just a tourist attraction."

"Oh, so he's heard of you but not me." Jake complained next to Danny.

"Well, that's a good thing right?" Danny whispered back to the teenager.

Jake choose to remain silent on this one, which Danny was happy about.

The ninja kid gestured to the monster in blue, catching the attention of Danny in the process, "Ideas?"


	8. Unexpected Teamwork

"U-ummm..." Danny stuttered, then came out from behind the pillar, waving at Jake to stay there. After all, if Jake didn't have to be noticed, at least dragonkind would be fine. "Define de-stank?"

The ninja started his rushed explanation, "Well... Theresthisancientevilsorcererthatlivesundernorrisvillehighandhesbeenslowlystankingkidsinordertoescapeandfinallybefreeto destroy the world!"

"Okay. All I heard was 'destroy the world'..." Danny replied to the statement.

The ninja paused, "Let's try again," The black-clad figure cleared his throat, "An evil sorcerer tries to take over the world, but the first ninja stops and seals him into the ground beneath Norrisville High School. However, being the bloodthirsty guy he is, he takes advantage of teenager's depression, and steals their power to eventually become free from his prison and once more rule over mankind."

"I'm... I'm sure that was more words than the first one." Danny commented, half the stuff already being forgotten as he spoke.

"Was it?" the black-clad teen scratched his hoodie thing.

"Yeah. Anyways, doesn't the beast seem docile?" Danny turned back to the monster, noting how it wasn't even interested in anything; kind of like a zombie waiting for orders.

"That's true, by now he should-"

The ninja was interrupted by the... Stanked kid did he say? as the purple mass rammed into a wall.

"Well, first things first, we have to get Bucky out of the lunch room." The ninja said, slightly shaky as he said it, yet confidant in his decision.

"On it." Danny leaned over to his new partner and grabbed his wrist, assuming Bucky was the monster.

"Hey!" The complaint came from the teenager, but Danny paid no mind. The ghost kid rocketed over, and tackled the monster through the walls via intangibility. Soon enough, the three were outside. "I think I'm going to be sick..." Danny ignored the initial protest from the ninja. He let go of the monster, flew a feet away, and set down a certain 'protector of the universe' experiencing nausea from phazing.

"Okay, now we're outside, but what can stop him?" Danny asked the ninja, "you should know, this _is_ your specialty right?"

"Wait, gimmie a sec okay?" The ninja regained his composure then continued. "Well I'm not entirely sure how to de-stank him, after all, he doesn't have anything he holds dear near him."

"Sure..." Danny waited for the ninja to get a better idea on what to do.

"I'm going to ask the nomicon!"

"Wait what now?"

"Keep it busy!" The ninja suddenly ran off, leaving Danny to take care of the beast.

Baffled, Danny turned back and forth between the monster and where the ninja ran off. "You're leaving me..." Danny performed the maneuver again, "to fight something I've never _seen_ before. And it's not even a ghost!"

"Need help?" Danny whipped around to the other direction, spotting an out-of-breath Jake.

Danny then checked the direction the ninja rushed off to, and the rampaging monster. "Yeah, that might be a good idea."

Jake nodded, transforming into his dragon form, "So how do we stall a rampaging monster?"

Danny smirked, "Have you looked into the mirror lately?" He then laughed, "I'm kidding. But seriously, the only thing I can think of is freezing him. But that might be dangerous to someone who isn't a ghost."

"How about freezing his limbs?" Jake obviously wasn't amused at Danny's joke, but liked the plan.

"That could work..." He thought for a second, worst case scenario they would break a limb or two. He then checked up on the monster. It was currently violently smashing a light tan car with a dark oak strip down the sides. Danny could have sworn he heard a protest in the smashing, but promptly ignored it. "Jake, you detain it. You can do that right?"

"Of course!" Jake then immediately charged the beast, catching it off-guard.

Jake easily pinned the monster to the ground beside truck, where Danny instantly froze it's limbs in place.

"Great! You got it pinned." The two boys had been towering over the struggling beast, but at the sound they simultaneously turned their heads. "I figured it out."

As soon as the two recognized the ninja, a bunch of crayon arrows pointed all around the purple mass. Quickly, the ninja ran up and sliced the monster's hat. When nothing happened, the ninja kid backed off.

"That didn't work." Jake stated the obvious. The ninja jumped back and gasped, as if just realizing a giant dragon was there.

"What the juice!" The ninja spouted the phrase, "You wanna go?!" He suddenly drew a few round mechanisms and a few throwing stars out of the suit.

"No! He's an ally." Danny intervene before Jake could retaliate.

"Ally? What? Now I have to team up with a _dragon_ too?" The ninja sounded almost angry, as if he didn't like his situation.

Danny shook his head, "Okay Nomicon, What do we _actually_ do? I believe that's your name right... crayons?"

The floating arrows danced around, then formulated a phrase in the air: _Help is required to hit a small target_.

"See? It doesn't make _any_ sense!" The ninja complained loudly, in which case the still struggling monster replied with its own roar.

Danny ignored the beast, an idea clicking into place. "Ja- I mean, American Dragon, is your nose better than your flying?"

Jake glanced over at Phantom, "I don't smell dude. I'm not a pet."

"I take that as a no." Danny then whistled, waiting a few moments, and Cujo appeared out of thin air. Danny took a few moments to praise the dog for coming, then sent his to sniff out anything odd. "Ninja kid, get your blade ready."

"Was that... A... Ghost dog?" He asked, and when Danny nodded, the ninja took a deep breath. "Okay. You got it man."

A minute passed, then Cujo came dashing back to the three teens. Not waiting for a moment to pass, he glanced at Jake, "Thanks for the help Am Drag, but me and this ninja can take care of the rest." Danny choose to once more ignore his friend's complaint, and grabbed both Cujo's collar. "Fetch!"

Soon enough, the two ghosts and ninja phazed through the walls, only stopping inside the boy's bathroom. Instantly, Danny frowned. "Tucker. Seriously?" He then remembered that the ninja was here, and restated his comment, "I mean... Fear not citizen! Your nefarious device is causing harm! I must confiscate it!"

Tuck looked up from a complicated-looking remote control. "Oh hey, it's Phantom!" He then gave Danny a stern look, "But I haven't taken it apart yet!"

Danny dropped the ninja onto the ground, who groaned upon impact and once more complained about throwing up. "Look kid, you have got to hand it over, you've broken a car for goodness sakes!" Tucker then hesitantly handed over the device, and Danny turned to the ninja. "Dude, slice this please."

The ninja got up, and decided it was better to not question Danny's tone. He quickly sliced the remote in two, and the boys flinched as the device exploded into green smoke, which immediately dissipated into the vents.


	9. Stranger Danger!

Danny watched the green gas fly into the vent and watched it in curiosity. A moment later and the green swirls dissipated.

"That was way more interesting than taking apart the device" Tucker commented.

"What? That?" The ninja pointed to the vents where the smoke disappeared with his sword, seeming to have recovered from phazing. "I see that practically every day."

To this, Danny whipped over to the ninja, "What's the smoke all about then?"

"Foley! Your extended bathroom break has just extended past your next three breaks for your test!" A mad-sounding voice resembling Mr. Lancer's resounded on the other side of the boy's bathroom door.

"Y-yeah! I'll be out in a second!" Tuck called back, subduing the anger of Mr. Lancer for a little bit.

"And that's my que! Smokebomb!" _Poof_. Smoke filled the room for a brief moment as the ninja disappeared.

Danny coughed a few times as the black-clad person made his escape. "The test? You guys are taking it now?"

"We didn't start it right now..." Tucker then continued just as Danny was going to let out a breath of relief, "it's been going on for 20 minutes. Danny, you're late bro."

"LATE!?" Danny instantly groaned after the initial outburst, "this is a _great_ test to be late for."

"Good luck." Tucker's parting words did anything but encourage the ghost kid as he phazed through the walls once more.

"So what happened Danny? The monster suddenly became a writhing blonde teenager. What did you do?"

Danny jumped to Jake's comment -if a floating ghost could even do such a thing. "Oh god Jake. Didn't I tell you not to scare me like that?"

The dragon was now in his human form, his posture indicated he was waiting earnestly. "Yeah yeah, but dude, you've gotta tell me what you did." Jake brushed off the complaint and continued regardless.

"Sure, but after the test."

"Test?"

"Yeah, the we-will-fail-life-if-we-don't-get-a-good-grade test? We're 20 minutes late." Danny then grabbed Jake and phazed through the wall, only to quickly spy a rogue teacher wandering the halls.

As the balding teacher whipped his head over to spot Jake, Danny had stood behind his buddy and turned back human. "Jake."

"Rootwood."

"PROFESSOR!" The teacher, Rotwood Danny presumed, shouted then readjusted his glasses when he spotted Danny's exit from Jake-the-shield. "It's Professor Rotwood to you Mr. Long, you _should_ know this by now." The teacher cleared his throat as his eyes narrowed, "What are you doing out here? Aren't you supposed to be taking a test?"

"Y-yes sir we are, but..." Danny spotted Jake's hesitation and glance to the halfa.

"But!" Danny only took a split second to catch on, "I was helping Jake study for this test when..."

"When I checked the time to find that-" Jake then continued the excuse.

"-We were late!" Danny then added a statement as the teacher raised an eyebrow, "we ran as fast as we could. How late are we exactly?"

Rotwood raised his arm to check his watch, "About 22 minutes and 43 seconds." He then scanned the two, distrust in his eyes. "We have prepared a room for late-comers. Right this way."

Danny glanced at Jake as he realized the excuse worked, then followed the ginger-haired 'professor'. It didn't take long for the two to realize that this late-comers room was _literally_ a different room from the other test takers. After all, the students and teacher passed by the over-packed room full of teachers and students a little while ago. Danny glanced to Jake and caught his gaze for a brief second, the two sharing their worry. From first encounter, Danny knew Jake and Rotwood didn't seem to be on good terms. That or the teacher was like that to everyone, which was entirely possible. However, the way Jake reacted to Rotwood is what really set the bell off in Danny's head. Fumbling about wasn't Jakes style, or at least what Danny's seen of Jake's style. Suddenly, the movement stopped, and Danny barely had time to halt before hitting Rotwood.

"Right this way boys," Rotwood opened the door, "Miss? There are two others who are late. Jake Long and..." He turned to Danny, pausing as he realized he didn't know the halfa's name.

"Ah, Danny Fenton!" Danny peeked around Rotwood and spotted who the owner of the familiar voice was.

"Spectra." Danny frowned, this was going to be _great_.

"Oh good! Seems you two know each other! Well, _good luck on the test_ you two!" As Rotwood exited, Danny took a step forward into the classroom.

"Now Spectra, don't try any funny business okay?" Danny walked up to Spectra, Jake in tow.

"Oh me? _Why would I do such a thing?_ " Her words dipped in sarcasm, she continued, "Take a seat over by that fine gentleman. We were about to start!"

Danny's first thought was something along the lines of: _Who else could be this late?_ But as soon as Danny turned to face the teenager, he glanced at Jake. The two boys had the same expression. The boy sitting before them had dark purple hair that seemed to be too spiky for it's own good.


	10. Clarifications

"Are you the boy that ran the talent show?" Jake's question made the purple-haired kid glance up.

The kid opened his mouth to answer, but was promptly cut off by Spectra. "Ah, Jake, this is a testing zone, no talking please." Her eyes locked onto the dragon, "Please, take a seat. I was about to go over the rules of testing..."

Jake went to retaliate, but was also cut off from saying anything. He tried a few seconds later, but was unable to say what he wanted to because of Spectra. Eventually, the two boys took their seats: Danny on left of the purple-haired boy (near the door), Jake on the right. As Spectra laid out the rules -along with some personal regulations- Danny turned to Jake and gestured to the kid between them. Jake answered with a shrug, but mouthed a "Randy" with a quizzical look, then hesitated and mouthed another word, "Sandy". Danny glanced at the teen in question, and he gave Danny an odd look. By the look on Jake's face, the teen had given the same look to Jake.

"Excuse me." All three boys turned to the counselor in the room. "Get ready to begin."

Dread bubbled over as Spectra dropped the test onto his desk with a _thud_. As soon as he got the test, he fanned through the pages. No wonder it was an all-day test. He sighed and picked up his pencil, opening the packet to the first question.

~ . . Time skip to after test! ^^ . . ~

Danny couldn't remember what exactly was on the test, but knew he was done with anything involving his brain for a little while. Danny glanced back as Jake's friends trotted up behind Danny, Jake, Sam, and Tucker as they were walking and talking.

"We heard that another kid was late to the test. Spill the beans!" It was a darker-skinned girl whom Jake had been hanging out with earlier.

"Yeah! The beans!" The beanie kid was back too.

Danny glanced at Sam and Tuck, saw their confused expressions, and shrugged. He didn't know who they were either. That is, other than the fact that they were Jake's friends.

"It was some kid named Randy." Jake replied to the girl, "Remember he co-hosted all of those talent shows?"

"Yeah, I think so." The girl replied.

Danny cut in to go back on topic, "As I was saying, I haven't seen a trace of this ninja kid we keep running into." Danny phazed through a rock by his foot to avoid tripping. The group was migrating home. Jake was following Danny back to Fenton Works to see what it was all about, Sam and Tuck were just tagging along to stall on homework.

"I know, he's good at hiding himself." Jake replied, turning back to the conversation as well.

"Maybe this ninja has a hidden Jiu Jitsu!" Tucker raised his hands to imitate some karate chops.

"Or maybe he just has a hidden identity he switches into." Sam joined in, bringing a more logical approach. "Like Jake and Danny here."

"We should find his identity." Danny replied to Sam's comment.

"The whole point of a secret identity is that it's _secret_." The new girl replied.

"Oh right. I haven't introduced you guys yet." Jake paused his walk, causing the group to slow to a stop. "Trixie, Spud these people are part of our 'save-the-mythical-beasts' club." Jake gestured to Danny, "That's Danny. He's a ghost."

"Hello." Danny replied in a moderate tone. "Half-ghost, Jake. I'm half ghost."

"Hey." The girl replied, "I'm Trixie if you couldn't tell."

"I'm a human!"

"That's Spud." Jake said, "He's different." Jake then turned to the goth, "The one in black is Sam."

"Greetings."

"And that's Tucker."

"You," Tuck gestured to Trixie and raised an eyebrow, "may call me-"

"No thanks." Trixie cut Tucker off.

"Yeah, I'm not really into guys." Spud raised his hand and shook his head as he spoke.

"Where you headin'?" Trixie asked as the six started to move again.

"Fenton Works." Danny replied.

"You mean that house with the big... thingy on top?"

Sam replied before Danny could, "That's the OP center. And yes, that's where we're going."

"Great." Trixie replied, sounding thoroughly 'excited'.

Idle chit-chat filled the conversation after that, Trixie, Spud, Tuck, and Sam were getting to know each other. Every once in a while, Danny would correct or clarify something Tucker said about their adventures, and Jake would do the same for Trixie.

Time passed quickly, and Tuck was finishing up the group's list of enemies as they reached Fenton Works. "...Spectra, Ember, and Kitty are the worst of the girls."

"Ah, so Spectra is a ghost?" Jake shivered, "no wonder I didn't like her."

"Yeah, and she feeds off of other's misery to stay young forever. Kinda creepy right?" Danny added to Jake's surprise.

Jake simply nodded, and Danny gestured for the group to be quiet. "Dad and Mom are avid ghost hunters, and don't know I'm a ghost. I'd rather keep it that way, kay?"

Jake once more nodded, this time with a bit more understanding.

As representative for the six, Danny opened the door tentatively. "I'm home~" He called, then opened up the door fully. "I brought some new friends..."

The group waited for a minute, and just as Danny was going to celebrate that his parents went home, Maddie Fenton dashed to the door. "Danny! I heard you brought friends over!"

"Hello Mrs. Fenton." Jake walked into the door, and glanced to Danny to make sure he was correct with the name.

As Danny nodded, His mom jumped a few times. "Danny hasn't made friends in a while! Ever since that Dash kid-"

"Mom, Dash isn't my friend!"

"Oh sure he isn't." Maddie gestured for Jake to come into the house, and Jake complied.

"Hey Mrs. Fenton." Sam walked in next followed by Tucker.

"Oh hello Sam and Tucker, how are you? Haven't talked in a while!"

"Yo, I'm Trixie. Pardon the intrusion."

"Mrs. Fenton is it? I'm Spud!" Spud held his hand out for Maddie to shake, but Trixie pulled it back to the teen's side.

"We'll be in my room mom." Danny said, and herded his friends to the stairs.

"I'll bring snacks up for you in a bit." Maddie called, but the teenagers were already in Danny's room.

"Heh, I'm surprised we all fit in your room Danny." Sam commented once everyone found their own spot in the room.

"Honestly, me too." Danny replied, and turned to the people raiding his game cabinet. "So this is Fenton Works, I'm here maybe half the times my parents think I'm here."

"Cool." Jake replied and jumped onto the bed next to Danny. "So what's with the whole half-ghost thing? I mean, I was born as a dragon. Were you born a ghost?"

Danny sighed, he knew he'd have to answer this question eventually, but hadn't figured out how to explain the ghost realm. "My dad made a portal to the ghost realm by accident. Sam dared me to go into the portal-" Danny's tone changed as he injected the extra info, "-now, at the time we assumed that the thing was broken, so I had close to no qualms about going in."

"I don't think I dared you." Sam complained as she interrupted.

"Yeah, you did." Tucker pulled out his PDA and played a voice recording that proved she was guilty.

"You were recording it?" Sam asked Tucker, more surprised than angry, "How, no, why would you even consider that?"

"Hey, you never know when-"

"Anyways," Danny shut off the conversation before it went out of hand. "I went in, turned on the portal, and BAM!" The room all turned to Danny as he exclaimed the word. "I was a ghost." He shrugged. "I eventually figured out that I could change between a human and a ghost."

"Hmm. That's more exciting than my origin story." Jake commented.

"But what's this ghost zone?" Trixie asked.

"Portal!?" Spud jumped up, he either was just coming into the conversation, just processed it, or just woke up from a nap. Danny wasn't sure which one it was.

"Come on, I'll show you the portal if you want." Danny hopped off his bed and led the group down a few floors.


	11. Rescue?

The group bounded down the steps -after a few questions from Danny's dad on their purpose for going downstairs. The halfa gestured to the portal, facing his friends, then glanced behind him to make sure it was closed.

"Nice... Lab...?" Danny turned back to see Jake touching one of the many devices in the room.

"Thanks! It's dad's lab. I just help clean every once in a while." Danny replied, and directed attention back to the portal. "This leads to the Ghost Zone. It's sort of hard to explain, but this portal opens a rip between our world and the ghost's world- Yes, Spud?"

Spud lowered his raised hand. "Can humans even go into this ghost zone thingy without being... exploded or something?"

"Well-" Danny went to reply, but Sam was faster.

"Yes and no. You see, we can enter the Ghost Zone with no problems, we could breath the air in it, It's just..." She paused as she thought of the correct phrasing.

"Difficult to move around." Tucker picked up Sam's thought train, "The only land masses in the Ghost Zone are separated by... space."

"Space? Like, stars and stuff?" Trixie asked.

"Not quite, more like air." Tuck replied.

"To get to the point, you can really only move around in there via flying." Danny answered, "which isn't that hard when you are a ghost."

"Oohh!" Spud smiled sloppily, "Thanks. I got it now."

"Do you guys want to see it?" Danny asked.

"See what?" Spud replied, confused.

"The Ghost Zone. Of course we want to." Jake replied to Spud, then turned to Danny.

"Will the Specter Speeder hold everyone?" Sam shot the question at Danny, and gestured to the vehicle.

"Sure it will." Danny walked over and opened the door, "So..." He counted the seats, "Tuck and Sam in front, Spud, Trixie, and Jake in the back seats. It might be a bit squished but-"

"What about you Danny?" Jake asked.

"Me? I'm half ghost, it's..." Danny paused, "...sorta... my domain, I'll fly." His reply was almost immediate.

Jake shrugged, and gestured for Trixie and Spud to get into the vehicle. It took a minute or two, but everyone managed to fit into the Specter Speeder.

"Alright, going ghost." Danny turned to his alter-ego and opened the portal, the swirling green opening a little dizzying. He nodded to Sam, then led the way into the ghost zone. Danny paused when the vehicle got through, letting the visitors get a good view of the foreign area. Danny spotted the expressions on Jake, Spud, and Trixie's faces and held back a giggle. He gestured forward with a wave of his hand and Sam moved the vehicle forward, following Danny.

Not much time passed, but Danny had guided the crew through most of the known parts of the ghost zone. Danny had just barely stopped to turn towards the specter speeder when he spotted Jake point over Danny's shoulder. Confused, Danny turned around, only to find a younger teen clothed in black staring angrily into the green void.

"W-what are you doing here?" Danny questioned as he floated towards the ninja kid Danny and Jake had been encountering.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" He replied  
"...Floating around looking angry?"

"Nope, while I'd like to be doing that, I'm actually stuck here. Have been since lunch." He rolled his eyes, "Some hulking metal machine chased after me saying I'm a 'rare commodity' and he wanted me on his wall as a stuffed head." He paused to sigh, "Sucks since I had this really, uber long, important test today that I missed and will somehow have to make up."

"Well, that sucks. Would you like a ride?" Danny gestured to the Specter Speeder as it hovered closer to the two.

"Yeah sure." He spun around a bit more, still with his arms crossed.

"Gimme a second okay?" He turned back to the specter speeder and phazed his head through the tinted front window. "Got any room left? What's with the tinted window?"

"Well. This kinda is someone I didn't know. Better safe that sorry. And, no!" Sam flailed an arm behind her, "we have five people in this thing, it's only really supposed to hold four in the first place."

"So... no ride for the ninja?"

"No ride." Sam replied almost instantly

"Unless you carry him or something." Jake commented.

"Rope?" Tuck offered Danny, and he took it.

"Okay fine, let's just get back to my place as soon as we can."

Danny took a moment to turn back to the ninja, "grab a hold."

"Why?" The ninja took the end of the rope.

"You're hitching a ride, we don't really have extra seats right now but you still can get a ride outta here."

"Okay cool."


	12. Recognition

~Another time skip woo! :D Now we're back at Fentonworks, they just got through the portal!~

The group of six stood around the fenton lab, silently staring at the ninja.

"So can you explain why you were in the ghost zone again?" Danny asked again, still in his ghost form.

"Dude, I've explained it at least... a bajillion times!" The ninja complained in response.

"Technically, three times, it's just kind of hard to believe... You just... _showed up_ correct?" Jake took a second from his pacing to ask the question, then went back to his action.

"Yeah, pretty much." The ninja replied. "Actually, now that I think about it, what was that place?"

"Hmm?" Danny perked up and gestured to the portal, "That's the ghost zone. It's where ghosts live."

"Uh-huh, I see..." The ninja replied with a large breath after his phrase. "Where ghosts live huh?"

Danny sighed as he realized the ninja's tone of voice. "It's all going over your head, I know it."

"Ah... I see... All going over my head huh?"

Jake facepalmed, expressing both Danny's and the group of friends' exasperation in a physical gesture.

"Well, where do you live?" Danny asked after the dragon boy went back to his pacing. "I'll just fly you back"

"Nah I'm good thanks though." The ninja quickly replied and shot out of his seat. "Thanks for the info but I think I'll have to leave in order to... think about it." The teen threw out two hand-pistols as he said the last part, "see ya later. SMOKEBOMB!" *poof*

"You know... we've seen this guy so often, maybe we should actually try to recruit him." Danny commented as the smoke cleared.

"The Secret Trio?" Jake asked with sarcasm.

"Well, yeah."

"Don't you know that, like, all heroes travel in groups of three? Danny, me, and Sam. You, Trixie, and Spud. -" Tuck rattled off a bunch of other hero groups, both fiction and nonfiction. "Pairs just aren't... modern anymore."

"But what about Batman and Robin?" Jake shot back.

"I said _modern_." Tuck replied, "They aren't anything new."

"Fair enough." Jake backed off from the argument.

"Well, I think that's a good enough day for me." Danny clapped his hands together, then changed human. "I mean, I thought I was done after the test."

"Oh right, I forgot that we took that" Jake commented.

A pause left the room in silence.

"Jake."

"Oh right, sorry. Leaving."

Jake and his buddies trotted up the stairs, Danny and his friends close behind.

"Come again kiddos!" Maddie called from the kitchen as Jake opened the door.

"We will!" Jake replied.

"Cya later Mrs. Fenton!" Sam called as she and Tucker also filed out of the house.

"Danny! Commere for a sec. I have something I want to ask you!" Danny waved goodbye to his friends before answering the summons of his parents to the dinner table.

~ . . POV change! . . ~

"What the cheese is up with those dudes?" Randy 'The Ninja' Cunningham complained as he took off the mask, the orange puff of smoke dissipating outside as he spoke.

"What's up with what dudes?" Randy's loyal companion, Howard, asked as he bit into a McFist sandwich.

The two were having late-night snacks and playing _Grave Puncher 4! Now with more highly-demanded graves!_

"Well, I keep running into this ghost kid" Randy had just returned home via the window (his parents thought he was in the room with Howard all afternoon; which wouldn't be all that surprising).

"I still think it's awesome that you know a dragon and a ghost." Howard chuckled his words and set the sandwich down.

"Yeah, it is pretty cool isn't it?" Randy held his hand up for a high-five.

Howard took the gesture, the clap loud and proud. "I still can't believe that there are, like, no monsters lately."

"I know right? Something's wrong. The past month or so only had... what?" He took a second to count, "maybe three instances where I had to go ninja."

"Yeah." Howard took another bit of the sandwich as soon as he picked it back up.

"But you know, it's really bugging me." Randy rubbed his hand on his chin as he spoke, taking a deep breath, "I've never seen this ghost/dragon combo up until now."

"Well, they did say that they were protectors of those other two schools right?" Howard recalled the first night Randy met them.

"Yeah, but how can I trust what that ghost said? I mean, he called that limbo-like place I was in 'the ghost zone'." Randy mimicked the ghost teen's voice and held up air-quotations as he said the name.

"But what if it is?"

Randy gave Howard a good, long stare.

"What? The sorcerer lives underneath our school chained to a rock. A mask gives you a suit that makes you a ninja. Dragons exist. Ghosts exist. Heck, we have monkey robots and a dude with a brain in his arm." Howard lifted an eyebrow, a silent challenge to Randy to disprove him. "Why would a 'ghost zone' be any less real?"

"You know Howard..."

"What?"

"...You surprise me sometimes. You know that?" Randy's eyes narrowed as he once more stroked his chin, continuing before Howard could interrupt. 'You know, maybe I should try to actually talk to them."

"And do what? Team up with them?"

"How about this, we call ourselves:" Randy paused for dramatic effect and to spread his arms out in front of him, "The Secret Trio!"

"You know what Cunningham? I like it." Howard also paused, performing the same action Randy had. "Yes... The Secret Trio and the trusty sidekick extraordinaire, Howard!"

"I have no Idea what extraordinaire means-"

"Neither do I!"

"-But it sounds bruce!"

"So bruce!"

~ . . POV change! And skip through night! . . ~

Daniel Fenton groaned as the alarm blared through its speaker. Danny went to hit the mechanism, but accidently phased through the side table, resulting in a roll off the bed. Danny rubbed his head and made his way to a standing position. Just a typical morning for the local teenage ghost. He changed into one of his many similar-looking outfits and trudged out of his room. Jazz was in the kitchen, talking to their mom and dad excitedly about something that sounded really complicated and tiresome.

Maddie Fenton glanced over and spotted Danny, calling him over. "Hey, come listen to this new patient of Jazz's!"

"Sorry mom, gonna be late to school!" Danny chose that moment to wake up, grabbing what he assumed was breakfast, and hopped outside the door. Soon enough he was joined by Sam and Tuck, who instantly started chatting up a storm. Danny participated in the conversation, but had to stop halfway through one of his thoughts as they neared the school.

"Alright, seeya later Danny!" Sam waved as she turned to the left, Tuck close behind.

"Good luck in whatever you have to do today." Tucker added on before turning back to Sam to start another conversation.

It kind of sucked that Danny couldn't see his two best friends during class, but lunch time kind of makes the whole thing okay again. He started to the large double-doors but was interrupted before he got there.

"Dude, no. _Grave Puncher 5_ has got to be coming out soon!" For a minute Danny imagined the ninja kid, but he turned and found the purple-haired judge instead.

"Not for another couple of months though, look at the timeline!" The shorter kid pulled out a long scroll-like paper of 8.5/11 paper stapled together. "See here?" He pointed to a scribble on the paper.

"This is getting us nowhere. Let's just go to class." The purple-haired boy walked forward without looking and bumped into Danny.

"Pardon you." Danny mumbled.

"Oh so sorry man, didn't see you there." The teen paused as he studied Danny's face. "You..."

"Cunningham, we're going to be late!" The friend called, already at the door.

Cunningham gave one last look before scampering into the doors.


	13. Operation 'know-who-has-book'

Danny's first period of the day was mythology with professor Rotwood from Jake's school. But Danny couldn't focus on the class being taught. His table partner (the purple-haired teen Danny believed was named Cunningham) was stacking erasers. Rotwood had just assigned a new project involving making your own myth. That was all Danny knew, however, because once more his partner had tossed a little pink eraser towards his orange-haired buddy across the room.

"Dude, will you stop please?" Danny whispered

"What? You want in? Here." He absent-mindedly gave Danny an eraser, the ghost boy took and played with it a bit.

"Who is that anyways?"

"Who? Howard?" He asked, finally turning his blue eyes towards Danny. "Only my best bro." He shot a thumbs up towards Howard.

"Anything to add, Cunningham?" Rotwood had paused his speech about dragons to address the boys.

"No sir!" Cunningham saluted to the teacher, and Rotwood lifted an eyebrow, returning to his all-important speech.

A moment passed, then Danny returned to his questioning. "Oh yeah, this morning you looked like you recognized me... have we ever met before?"

"Unless you're actually some ghost in disguise, no we haven't met before. Why?" He asked, blinking a few times.

Danny gulped then replied, trying to reduce the surprise in his voice, "Oh no reason."

Cunningham shrugged and went back to his eraser-fight.

Danny didn't dare bother Cunningham for the rest of the period, in fear of slipping up. For some reason he really didn't want this guy to figure out Danny's secret. Something about... a talk show?

~Short time skip, Lunch~

"You know, I think this Cunningham kid is onto me." Danny whispered to Jake, staring at the purple-haired teen from across the lunchroom. He then turned back to his table of friends.

"Yeah?" Jake absentmindedly asked, stealing a piece of Tuck's steak lunch.

"Hey!" Tucker complained, but Jake shrugged in response.

"You're the one who left it wide open."

"Yeah, I mean, he practically called me out on being a ghost in first period." Danny ignored Jake as he took the ghost's food too. It wasn't surprising Jake did it, after all, he never bought his lunch because he could 'earn money for free' from his mom by keeping the lunch money for himself.

"You're just overreacting." Trixie spoke after taking a sip of her milk, swatting another food-stealing attempt from Jake.

"I don't know though, it just feels off. I can't really explain it, but I think that Cunningham isn't a normal kid." Danny insisted.

"What makes you say that though?" Jazz asked, her psychoanalytical mind kicking itself into gear.

"Hmm. Well. It kind of reminds me of my first conversation with Jake."

"Now that you say that though..." Jake set down the stolen carrot from Sam, "He wasn't at the talent show when the elf thing showed up."

"Yeah... Now that I think about that that's true." Danny paused and gave a laugh, "Jake are you implying that Cunningham is the ninja?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, why else would a judge skip out on being a judge?"

"...It's boring?" Sam replied to Jake's statement, taking the carrot back from the dragon.

"No, no, Jake's got a point." Jazz leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands. "Now we just have to figure out how to prove this theory. Is there anything the ninja has to have?"

"Woah woah woah, now you want me to steal from a ninja?" Danny asked in disbelief.

"If he won't do it I will." Jake said, "I'm a pretty good thief." He said smugly, trying to sneak another piece of food from Danny's plate, in which he failed.

"It is one of Jakey's secret talents." Trixie commented. "Not many know about it."

Danny gave Jake a 'really?' look, "I think I'd be a better thief, hate to break it to you Jake, but dragons aren't as sneaky as a ghost with invisibility."

"Good! You'll do it then!" Jazz gave a smirk as she locked Danny into the deal.

"Wait what? But I nev-"

"What about the book?" Tuck cut Danny off.

"Book?" Jazz asked, ignoring the cut off.

"Yeah, If I recall, The Ninja had a book called... Ninja no- ninja nam- ninja no-mi-can? Something of that sort."

"Oh right! That back and red book he was boasting about." Jake jutted in. "It-"

"You're just going to ignore me?" Danny complained as Jake spoke.

"-supposedly holds a bunch of secret ninja knowledge."

"Well, a ninja needs his knowledge, no?" Jazz thought for a moment, "I don't know about stealing though, it seems kind of unethical."

"Psh, it's not like we're going to destroy it or anything." Jake leaned back in his chair.

"Well... Maybe... Instead of stealing it, we ask Cunningham if he knows about this book." Danny stated. "Then we'd know if he is or knows the ninja's true identity."

"Alright, we'll start operation 'know-who-has-book' right after lunch." Jazz finished.

"But wait, what do we do?" Tucker asked, gesturing to the sidekicks of the group. "Come on man, you can't leave us out of the equation."

"We can do recon work, follow Cunningham and report what we find to these two guys right here, who will then catch him." Jazz handed out fenton phones, "we can communicate with these. Okay? Break!"

~Time skip to right after lunch~

"Okay, Cunningham is on the move."

Danny turned the sound up as he heard Sam's voice through the phones. "Roger."

"Where's he going?" Danny turned the sound back down as Jake asked the question loudly.

"Looks like he's going to an english class."

"Who's the teacher?"

"I donno, looks like room number 210."

"Room 210 is music class, the teacher is absent so Mr. Lancer is teaching it today." Jazz crackled into existence.

"Of course you'd know that Jazz." Danny's sarcasm was evident.

"Oh hey, I have that class next." Spud jumped in, surprising the entire party.

 _I kind of forgot he was here._ Danny thought for a brief second then continued, "Well then it's your job to record what he's doing."

"I have that class next too." Tucker commented.

"Okay then Tuck, you're in charge of notes."

"I have History next." Jake mentioned.

"Yeah, I have English next, but I have Music 6th, so I could engage him in the passing period." Danny replied.

"I also have Music 6th." Danny could imagine Jake nodding at this fact.

"Okay, sounds like a plan to me." Trixie added in, "If you need help I also happen to have History 5th, so I'm close to you."

Jazz took a breath, "Tuck, try to find either Jake or Danny, relay the info, and we'll meet back up after school to compare notes and see if Danny or Jake managed to spot the book."

"Or me!"

"Or Spud."

The Fenton Phones crackled in its characteristic way, the various times it was played indicated that everyone turned off their phones. Danny sighed and walked into his English class, frowning at the teacher. He didn't recognize the facility, so he just assumed she was from a different school or new. The principals hired more people when the students flooded the large school's halls. Danny took out his english notebook and a pencil, ready to doodle.


	14. Not So Secret Secrets

I just wanted to say thanks to you all for being supportive and reviewing my story! I'm terrible at updating at regular intervals, so I apologize for that!

To reply to some reviews:

-This is already the longest fic I've already written so I don't know if I could handle writing longer chapters sorry .

-For all those asking me to update, here it is ^^

-And about the story possibly being taken on a website called Quotev, I'm on Quotev with the username Mongolia, so if it's under there it's me! :D

Also, Merry -late- Christmas and Happy -late- New Year!

* * *

Danny packed up a couple of minutes early, to the disapproval of the teacher. The ghost kid gave the teacher a sweet smile and darted out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang. Not many teachers appreciated kids who did such an action so Danny narrowly avoided a lecture about 'respect' in relation to packing up early.

"Oh, I see him!" Jake's voice crackled to life once more.

"Where?" Danny asked almost instantaneously.

"Well... it looks like he's talking to someone, it's a teacher, he looks old and has a huge belly. He's also bald."

"Sounds like Lancer."

"Who?"

"Facility from my school."

"Ah, I see."

"Although, it sounds like Cunningham got into trouble." Tuck joined in with a 'hmmm' sound, "familiar territory anyone?"

"Okay, whatever, I'm going to go talk to him." Jake dismissed Tuck's comment, and began to walk forward.

Despite the fact that Danny wasn't all that close yet, he could hear the conversation through the fenton phones.

~POV switch to Randy~

"And that, young man, is why literature is the most important human relic still in existence." The aging teacher finished his thought in his quiet monotone voice.

"Why thank you for the invigorating speech, I feel more inspired than ever to learn about our cultural history." Randy replied, quoting what the sub rambled on about during the music class, though why he got lectured about literature during his music class is beyond him.

"Oh really? I mean-" The teacher was cut off before he could continue with his next paragraph of lecture.

"Hey Mr. Pan-" The voice stuttered, then corrected himself, "Lancer..." He paused -Randy assumed to think of an excuse- then gave a small chuckle, covering it with a cough. "I heard that someone was burning a copy of The Whale in the cafeteria."

" _Moby-Dick!_ " The teacher exclaimed and stomped off towards the cafeteria.

Randy turned towards his savior and blinked a couple of times before he realized that he had to look down to see the teen's eyes. "Hey, thanks for saving me from a lecture."

"Yeah don't sweat it dude."

A second of silence passed.

"Ehm... So why are you still here?"

"Oh- I have this class next." The boy smiled easily, "The name's Jake by the way."

"Randy." The two exchanged a handshake before another silence took place.

Jake rocked back and forth on his heels, then continued the conversation awkwardly. "Would you, uh, would you like to sit with me and my friends at lunch?"

"Could I invite my Biffer?"

"If by biffer you mean friend, then yeah sure."

"Okay."

"We sit in the back corner of the lunch area."

"Sounds bruce." Randy questioned once more why the teenager was approaching him and a wild thought came to his mind: _He knows I'm The Ninja!_ He shook off the thought, then started walking. "So... Nice talking to you. See you at lunch tomorrow then."

"Alright, see you tomorrow."

Randy shuffled off towards his History class, both confused and excited about meeting that kid for lunch tomorrow. For all Randy knew, this Jake kid could be the most popular kid in his school. Then Randy and Howard could get some much-needed attention and fans.

~Skip to afterschool :D We're at Randy's house, and Howard is there too~

"...dude, he could be the most popular kid in his school!" The purple-haired teenager gave off a big grin as he retold the encounter to Howard. "We'd totally make it into the Fish Cage!"

"But what if Jake is a loser like us?"

"Well then, that would be totally wonk."

"Wonk, yes, but it may be true." Howard stood up and paused _Grave Puncher 3_ (the two were binge playing all of the games for the 20th time). "Consider all of the possibilities here, Cunningham."

Randy joined his friend and stood, "Sure, that's one possibility, but _think of the popularity_."

Howard thought for a moment and laughed. "Imagine if this Jake kid is a part of the duo you keep encountering."

"Ha! That would be some coincidence wouldn't it." Randy gave a laugh as well, "It'd save me time. I am trying to find them after all."

"For the Trio!" Howard lifted his controller to the sky.

Randy did the same, tapping Howard's controller as if it were a toast. "For the Trio."

~POV skip back to Danny!~

"So... We learned his name is Randy... And we're going to meet him tomorrow at lunch?" Danny asked to confirm. The six were in Lao's shop in order to compare notes.

"Yeah." Jake nodded.

"Don't forget the fact that I saw him with a kid named Howard almost all the time." Trixie added.

"I still think he's the ninja." Jake commented absentmindedly. "He disappears as often as Danny does. I've seen him go to the bathroom every other day in English."

"Maybe he just has... issues." Tuck joined.

"I second Jake's intuition." Spud went back to playing with Jake's action figure collection.

Both Trixie and Jake looked at Spud, then at the same time, said "Jake's right." and "I'm right." respectively.

"Wait, why are you changing sides Trixie?" Sam asked out of curiosity.

"Spud's a genius that's why." Trixie responded instantly. "His intuitions are pretty on point."

"Really?" Jazz was skeptic, but seemed open to the idea.

"Anyways!" Danny tried to call the conversation back to its roots. He was honestly surprised the group didn't derail that much. "What should we say to Randy tomorrow?"

"Well, maybe we just reveal your identity to him." Jake gave a small smile.

"What?"

Jake shrugged, "both Spud and I believe he's the ninja. We could do a swap secrets thing."

Danny shifted with unease, "it seems like I worry about my identity more than you do."

"Whatever, we'll figure it out tomorrow when we see him." Jake finalized the concept without letting others butt in and comment.

~time skip to tomorrow at lunch :P ~

Danny was nervous. Of course he was. Jake hadn't given any signs that he was intending to keep Danny's secret. He was starting to question his choice in friends.

"Jake I still don't like this idea." He whisper-shouted, yet still continued walking with him to the back corner of the lunch room.

"Oh relax, I'm right, remember?" Jake replied at a normal volume.

"No, you're not. You're jeopardizing the entire realm on a _feeling_."

"Oh please, like you haven't done that before."

"Yeah, but at least I GOT THE FACTS FIRST!" Danny's whisper-shouting sounded more like a regular voice at the end.

"Chill, I got this." Jake nodded as he repeated the same phrase.

The two kept arguing until the table, where they shut up for a second to sit down, only to continue once settled in. The rest of the group decided engage in the same conversation, but among themselves. Sam, Jazz, and Tuck against the idea, Spud and Trixie for it.

"Ahem."

The two separate conversations stopped dead as Jake and Danny looked towards the throat-clear.

"Oh hey Randy. What's up?" Jake casually addressed the purple-haired teen.

"Why are we whispering?" the shorter one -Howard Danny assumed- whispered loudly.

"Were we whispering?" Danny asked back, trying to keep his nerves in check. "Tuck was telling us a joke."

"Yeah, I was telling a joke that had whispering a part of it." Tuck added to Danny's alibi.

"Come sit down." Jake gestured to the table, ignoring Danny's third death glare.

"Okay." Randy shrugged, then set his food down. "So, I happened to notice the lack of fangirls here."

"Fan-" Danny began.

"Ah yes, the fangirls are just getting lunch." Jake cut Danny off and gave the ghost a quick glance.

"Erm, yeah. That's right...?" Danny joined, confusion on his face.

"To be a part of our group we need to interview you." Jake stood and gestured for Danny to do the same.

Danny stood then whispered to Jake, "what are you even doing?"

"He thinks we're popular. We can use this." Jake whispered back then nodded, "come on Cunningham."

Randy looked spooked. He glanced to Howard, who gave him a nod and whispered something to him. After Howard whispered, Randy looked more confident and stood.

The three, led by Jake, walked to the center of the room. They sat down at an empty table and Jake gave a smile.


	15. Trio Confirmed!

OHMYGOSHIMSOSORRY! I just realized that I skipped a chapter! Please, please forgive me, and I hope this makes more sense! T.T

* * *

~POV change to Sam~

 _What are they doing?_ Samantha Manson's eyes narrowed as she watched the three boys from the back corner of the table.

"And you are?" the orange-haired companion caught Sam's eye as he tried to be suave.

"Sam. Ultra Recyclo Vegetarian. Goth." Sam returned to her observation of the boys. Danny seemed nervous, Jake seemed overconfident, and the newbie was even more confident than Jake seemed, which was a feat in itself.

"...Ultra recyclo vegetarian...?" Howard repeated under his breath.

"It means she won't eat anything that had a face on it." Tuck explained for Sam. He continued when Howard began to look terrified. "Don't worry, it's not contagious. I'm a meat connoisseur."

Howard sighed in relief.

Sam had seen the routine before. Howard was trying to warm up to the friend group of the "popular" kids so that worst case scenario he'd be tight with the friends of the popular kid. Sam drowned out the rest of the introductions, noting that Jake was beginning to falter in his facade. He must be out of questions. The dragon opened his mouth to ask another "question" when suddenly a robot crashed through the wall of the lunch room. The room froze and silence overcame the normally obnoxious room.

Instantly both Danny and the new kid, Randy, jumped up stating that they had to go to the restroom. At the same time, the lunch room stood and started to panic, moving towards the kitchen (which was opposite of the robot). Not only did those two things happen, but Sam caught a glimpse of Jake grab Danny and Randy's arms. To this, Sam stood up rapidly.

"What is that idiot doing!" She hissed. She looked back to the robot. It was small in size and looked remarkably like Phantom. The appearance of the robot contradicted the power it displayed: practically the entire wall was gone.

The robot took a few steps forward and glanced around the room. Then it began to shoot what looked like a missile guided by a laser pointer randomly about. The room crumbled from the various impacts. People continued to flee, but the table around her seemed to stay seated. Even Howard. Though, Howard was slowly standing up, as if he was taking his time to run away.

Sam looked back towards the boys, the two were now struggling fiercely but Jake kept an iron grip. For a moment she was impressed by Jake's strength. She didn't know he could hold back a furious ghost. She took a moment to question why Danny doesn't just phase out of Jake's grip then remembered that Randy was there. A civilian couldn't find out Phantom's secret.

Even from this distance Sam could make out Danny's protests. After what seemed like forever, Jake let Danny go. The ghost boy gritted his teeth and Sam's eyes widened as he simply ducked under the table to change into Phantom. He phased through the table and pointed his index and middle finger from his eyes to Jake's.

~POV change to Danny~

At this moment, Danny Phantom was seething with anger. His hunch was correct. Jake wasn't willing to keep his secret. On top of that, this robot was a carbon copy of himself. Well, not really. He floated above the head of the Danny-clone, not even in the mood to give it a clever quip. He shot his ghost beam at its face, melting the head. The robot made a bzzt sound as it powered down and Danny floated back to Jake. He looked into Jake's dark brown eyes, slowly shook his head, and dashed through the roof.

~POV change to Jake~

Jake Long was determined. He didn't mean for the idea to blow up like that but it wouldn't stop him. The fight ended too quickly to make Randy go into his ninja mode. He was going to have Randy join the fight when Danny was struggling - whether he was winning or not. He also felt a pang of regret as Danny gave him a glare before leaving. He felt Randy squirm once more and he realized that his grip was even tighter. He let go of the ninja's arm before it broke.

Randy retreated his arm, more calm than Jake had initially calculated. It just furthered his suspicions about Randy's identity. "You have a strong grip." He commented as his voice cracked.

Maybe he wasn't as composed as Jake assumed.

"Okay well... You're the ninja right?" Jake asked straight up.

As Randy paused people began filing back into the lunchroom, the broken robot ignored. "Y-" He stopped again as he spotted Howard coming towards him.

The beginning of the word was enough to convince Jake. "Let's go then." He grabbed Randy once more and dragged the lanky boy out the hole in the wall.

"But-"

"Danny's first." Jake stopped Randy's protest. "The fate of the universe is in the balance."

Randy blinked a few times, following Jake after the comment finished.

Jake turned around the corner of the school, finding an abandoned courtyard. He was slightly surprised at the absence of people but remembered that school was going on. The ring of a bell confirmed that people were in class now. The students were pretty calm when creatures attacked. They recovered quickly and always went back to class. It was rare for class to get canceled due to attacks nowadays.

"Dragon up!" Jake was surrounded by his holographic fire as he transformed. He fell to all fours and glanced at Randy. "What?"

Randy's mouth was wide open. " _You're_ the dragon?"

"Yeah."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Like, seriously seriously?"

Jake rolled his eyes. "Just get on."

"So bruce." Randy commented before waiting. "Okay well, since you both revealed your secrets, here goes nothing."

Randy Cunningham took out a black and red mask, shouting a "It's Ninja 'o clock!" Before putting the mask on. It was Jake's turn to gape at Randy as the mask exploded into ribbons. A half a minute passed and the ninja appeared where Randy once was.

"Ha, I was right." Jake gave a smug grin, which looked awkward in his dragon form. "So... In this form you gotta call me Am Drag in public. Danny's alternate name is Phantom." Jake knew that they already had exchanged these names before, but he wanted to see if Randy had an actual name. He highly doubted that he called himself 'The Ninja'.

"Oh, mine's The Ninja."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"That's kinda lame name."

"Hey! It's not 'lame' it's bruce!" Randy held up hand quotes as he said 'lame'.

Jake once more rolled his eyes and gestured for Randy to climb aboard, which The Ninja did.

Jake took off from the ground, surprised for a second by the weight of a person on his back. He quickly recovered, however, and shouted at Randy to tell him to hold on tight. "I'm going to be going as fast as I can. Danny can reach over 100 miles per hour."

"What!" Randy exclaimed, "what! Over 100 miles per hour?! He could make a fortune in races!"

"Yeah, he could but he doesn't." Jake replied. "Anyways, just hold on okay?"

~POV change to Danny~

Danny stopped his dashing around. He was still in Amity Park. He landed on the top of the OP center. The ghost took a second to admire the closeness of the three towns. It was only about a 10 minute fly from school to his house. Of course, this was at about half of his full speed, but it still was impressive. Danny had calmed down quite a bit from his earlier anger.

Of course, he was still mad at Jake. The ghost boy wasn't sure whether or not to forgive him. At this point he mainly wanted Jake's hunch to be correct. Else he'd be in the morning papers. Danny could care less about his enemies finding out his secret (since they all knew), but if his parents found out...

"Argh!" Danny shouted as loud as he could. "I'm going to kill Jake if my parents find out!"

"Well, they won't." Danny glanced up as Jake appeared in full dragon form.

"Oh but they will. A civilian knows my secret! I'll be in the news."

"No you won't!" A familiar voice shouted in what seemed like a 'heroic' tone.

Danny took flight once more and rounded around Jake. "Wah! Ninja?"

"The one and only!" The black-clad male triumphantly replied.

"Why are yo- why is he here?" Danny looked from the ninja to Jake.

"He's here to join us."

"What? But we don't even know who he is!"

"Randy Cunningham."

"What? Why are you bringing up him?"

"At your service, sir Phantom." The ninja joined in on the two's conversation. "Should I call you sir...? Maybe just Phantom is okay. Hmm... I'm actually thinking I'll just call you Danny."

"Erm..." Danny looked baffled, "what's exactly going on here?"

"Dude, Randy is The Ninja." Jake rolled his eyes, lowered his elevation and landed on the Fenton's roof, turning back into his human form.

"But wait..." Danny landed as well. "You shouldn't show the ninja your real form Jake."

The ninja rolled his eyes. "I'm Randy Cunningham. I'm The Ninja." The ninja lifted his hands to his head and pulled off the mask.

Danny's mouth fell open as he watched the ninja burst into ribbons and the purple-haired teen known as Randy stood where the ninja once was.

"We totally had the same reaction!" Jake laughed as he walked over to Danny. "I told you my hunch was correct."

"Eh? But-" Danny scratched his head, "You don't look ninja-capable."

"It's all in the suit." Randy nodded, putting the mask into his jacket.

"Besides, do I look like a dragon?" Jake shrugged.

"Fair point." Danny replied and switched to his human form. "So..."

A moment of silence passed.

"Are you really called 'The Ninja'?" Danny asked.

"Yeah." Randy replied.

"That's a lame name."

"That's what I said!" Jake threw his hands up into the air.

"It's not 'lame'! It's bruce!" Randy shouted, giving a quick sigh afterwards.


	16. Questions

*edit*

I totally skipped a chapter before, and I totally apologize! It should be up now or soon (I have uploaded it at this moment)

*/edit*

So guess what!

I have the rest of the series planned out! *.* There's about 20 chapters left methinks! I did plan a "reader suggestion" chapter, so if you want anything in particular (no matter how crazy) please let me know and it might be put in the story! :D

That one's about 13 chapters away, so there's some time, but please make a suggestion whenever you want!

* * *

"Well, I actually wanted to say sorry about jumping the gun for this assumption." Jake looked at the ground and shuffled, "But it's okay now right? We cool?"

"Nope!" Danny smirked. "You'll have to make up for it by letting me call the group The Secret Trio."

"Aww man..." Jake complained.

"Oh seriously? The Secret Trio?" Randy laughed, "I was thinking of that name too! Ey, great minds think alike, am I right?"

Danny raised an eyebrow then returned Randy's high five.

"Let's, uh, get off the OP center now." Danny gestured to the building under them and switched to his ghost form.

"Where are we gonna go?" Randy asked, taking a step closer to Jake.

"Why don't we go to Gramps' place and show gear off." Jake suggested, getting into his dragon form once more.

"But what about Sam, Tuck, and them?" Danny asked the question.

"We can explain later." Jake answered easily.

"What about school?" Randy got onto Jake's back then let out a hearty laugh, "I almost sounded sincere about that one. Pretty good, huh?"

Danny gave Randy a good look, "we might as well skip since we've missed 5th period."

"Fair point." Jake took off once Randy was situated.

~bedobedobedobeeeeuu *batman sound effect for scene change* At Jake's place!~

"So I have the basic dragon kit. Fire, minor shapeshifting, flight, etc." Jake explained his powers as he led the two to the basement.

"My suit has all my gear, I'll lay it out when we get down there." Randy nodded.

"My real question: why does your VHS repair shop have a training room in the basement?" Danny asked then added, "One that can withstand abnormal situations?"

"Eh, Gramps said his master built it for when he was training." Jake dismissed the question and held his hands out. "Voila!"

The area was quite large, with a rectangular shape. It was an off-white color so that it wouldn't blind the trainee. Thankfully. There was nothing else in the room -save the dust.

"Actually, why was Lao okay with Randy knowing?" Danny asked, "He almost flipped out at me learning your secret."

"Oh, dragons and ninjas go way back. In fact, Gramps was friends with the last ninja."

"And the Nomicon says it's fine." Randy put his mask on and the ribbons appeared, just as flashy as it was last time. "Okay so I have all of this." He began taking... things out of his suit and laying them about.

"Let's start with the Ninja bee balls, Ninja trip balls..." Randy listed off what was before him. Danny lost track of all the gadgets when he began to explain the different types of weapons he had stored.

"Oh, the most important tools to me would be the ninja sword, scarf, and smokebomb." He nodded, pointing to each object as he said their title. "I also have the Ninja Tengu Fireball, Ninja Air Fist, Ninja earth attack, The Art of Healing, The Art of Disguise, and super senses." Randy took a deep breath, "What do you have Danny?"

"Eh?" Danny wasn't sure how to top what Randy had, or even if he needed to. "Well, Ghost sense, Ghost shield, and ice rays." He counted off on his fingers, "Then I also have the classic ghost powers of flight, intangibility, invisibility, Ghost rays, and overshadowing-"

"Overshadowing?" Randy interrupted Danny.

"Yeah, I can take over people's body for a while." Danny replied, "anyways, I'm also working on duplication... My future self was able to use a Ghostly Wail of sorts... I have no idea how to do it though."

"Wait... You saw your future self?" Jake asked.

"He was trying to kill my friends so I was guaranteed to turn into him." Danny brushed it off, "Clockwork helped me stop him though."

"Clockwork?"

"Clockwork's the ghost of time. He has the ability to travel through it."

"Dude, Jake, it's not that surprising." Randy continued when Jake gave him a look, "What? I went back in time and met The First Ninja." He began to put his things back, "It was about the 13th century. I helped The First Ninja seal the sorcerer and create the Nomicon." He paused, "We're still buds."

"How could you still be friends with him still..." Danny took his turn to question the information provided. "He's dead right?"

"Nah, He's in the Nomicon." Randy stuffed the Nomicon inside his suit. "Anywho I wanna see your fire." Danny had a feeling that Randy was grinning, "I bet my Ninja Tengu Fireball is better!"

Danny switched to his ghost form to avoid wild fire shots and called, "I'll be over here." before walking to a corner of the room. He was interested in the fight, but he was more interested in what would happen next. The Secret Trio was finally formed... But what was their purpose? There had to be a reason why the three were brought together... Danny didn't believe in fate, but it isn't often when a ghost, dragon, and ninja team up. If ever. Phantom's thoughts were broken as Randy shout his attack as loud as he could. The two had quickly set up a target on the wall or, more likely, it was there to begin with. The ghost watched as Randy's suit swapped primary and secondary colors, and a ball of fire in the form of a fist came from his hands, bathing the target in fire. Danny giggled as Jake complained about getting a new target.

Danny turned back to his train of thought. The ghost took a couple of minutes to formulate his ideas, then kneeled down to look around for a piece of paper and pen.

"Whatchu scheming?" A pen and paper fell in front of Danny as a human Jake asked the question.

"Oh, you done showing off?" Danny smirked, taking the pan and paper. "That was fast."

"Yeah, and I'm better than Jake is." Randy gloated.

"Psh, you wish." Jake quipped back.

Danny rolled his eyes. "I was just trying to figure out why there haven't been any ghosts lately."

"Oh yeah, that is a good question." Randy took off his mask and plopped onto the floor. "Can I have a paper and pen too Jake?"

"What am I, a busboy?" Jake grumbled and produced another set of writing utensils.

"So... First off, who are your guys' main enemies?" Danny rearranged himself so he could write, "My arch nemesis is a man named Vlad Plasmius-"

"Total bad guy name." Randy commented.

"I know right?" Jake added.

"-who is a half-ghost like me, but more powerful." Danny continued, ignoring the two's comments. "He was turned half-ghost via my dad's first attempt at a ghost portal. He was deemed ill and sent to a hospital for years to recover. He somehow made a name for his human side, Vlad Masters, and became one of the most powerful ghosts out there. His main powers are duplication, manipulation, and ghost shields."

Jake nodded, like it all made sense. "Okay, so an uber-powerful half-ghost is after you because...?"

"Well, I'm dad's son. My dad took Maddie, whom Vlad loved, out from under him, so he despises me to get back at Dad."

"Basically revenge." Randy simplified it.

"Yeah, revenge. Really _complicated_ revenge." Danny wrote down his name, powers, and reason for hating Danny.

A second passed and Jake sighed, "okay. Well, there really is no 'bad guy' per say from the mythical realm that I deal with daily. Hmm... Maybe The Dark Dragon... Though, if I had to decide on who to take the overall 'bad-guy' spot, it would be The Huntsclan."

"Ooooo, spookier name than Plasmius." Randy lifted his hands to imitate a ghost, but was soon stopped by an annoyed look from Danny.

"The Huntsclan's whole purpose is to capture magical beasts. In fact, their right of passage is killing a dragon..." Jake sniffed, "My first love is a Huntsgirl."

"Rough buddy." Danny patted Jake's shoulder, "But do they have any particular motive or power?"

"They just want the world to be rid of magical creatures. I'm not sure why. Oh, also, they all have a dragon birthmark on them somewhere... Most likely the left hand."

Danny took the notes.

"I have two main enemies." Randy began. "Though, it's more like just one big bad guy and a littler, more annoying on under him..." He thought for a moment, "anyways, this big bad guy is known as The Sorcerer."

"Pff!" Jake took his turn to laugh at the name of the bad guy.

"No really though, he's a scary dude." Randy assured Jake. "I already explained a bit of this to Danny, but his main goal is to regain his power and take over the world. He's currently sealed under Norrisville High -which we all know is the pre-expanded school we attend now- chained to the ground under a spell that prevents him from using all of his power. He stanks kids by using his magic to turn them into monsters when they are vulnerable... I think his power is chaos or something? I mean, that's all that he aims for..." He thought for another second. "Regardless, he's trying to break free. Now McFist, his underling, is trying to free him by destroying The Ninja-" he pointed to himself, "-me. I'm not entirely sure what McFist's motive is but I think it has something to do with... A wish? He mostly deals in robots."

When Randy stopped talked, Danny took a second to be surprised. "Wow, I didn't think you could ever be serious. Much less know that much about your enemies."

"True that." Jake added.

"Well... I _am_ The Ninja. It's kinda my _job_ to be sneaky and learn about my opponents."

"Fair point." Danny took the notes. "So, let's see what has happened since then." Danny put a couple of pieces together and took Randy's sheet (which he gave a little protest to). He began to draw a mind map of sorts. "So... I say that the possessed robotic elf was a coincidence." He pointed to the robot's spot on the page. "But why would Vlad want pixies?"

"Maybe he just wanted to see what they do." Randy suggested, taking his pen and writing the idea on the page.

"I doubt he's doing anything." Jake said, "Pixies are pretty obnoxious and won't give you information no matter how much you hurt them. They're tough little bugs."

"Yeah, I guess so." Danny thought, "But Vlad is _always_ up to something."

"He probably just saw new creatures on his turf." Randy gave another option, again writing it down. "I mean, you didn't know about magical creatures until Jake appeared. Maybe the pixies were getting a bit too cocky with the Am Drag around and got caught."


	17. Shopping

~POV switch to Vlad! OooooOOooOOOo! Bad guy!~

Vlad masters grumbled complaints as he shuffled through the long hallways of the grocery store. He picked up a couple of things for his household then wandered over to the cooking section. "Why oil?" He questioned, then shook his head and grabbed the most expensive vegetable oil he could see. He paused to think of the answer. "We are baking after all." He shrugged it off and headed towards the line, waiting as patiently as he could.

Elevator-like music played in the background. Vlad had a couple of thoughts about this 'cake' thing, like whether it would actually work or not. Nonetheless, he would be the ultimate ruler of the world. He just needed to play along until the cake was done. As he waited for the clerk to scan the items he suddenly sneezed. "Oh, I hope this is just someone badmouthing me." He muttered, putting on a smile when the clerk said hello and welcome. The monotonous beeping of the various cooking utensils and oil being added to the total gave Vlad a sense of calm. Maybe even the calm before a storm.

"That'll, uh, be, um... $500 please!" The teenage clerk grabbed Vlad's attention and he brought out a card. "Credit or debit?"

"Debit." He responded.

"What are you going to make?" The beanie-wearing teen asked as he sloppily clicked the buttons, "I mean, you have all this cooking stuff."

"Oh not much, just a cake for a friend's welcome back party."

"Are they coming back from college or something?"

Vlad took a second to question the teen's tone, like that of a drunken person. "Hmm, more like he's been out of town for a while."

"That's cool." The teen handed Vlad's card back to him. "Have a nice day."

Vlad took the card slowly, inspecting the teenager. He felt like he should be weary of the kid. However, the line behind him was already growing and the teen's name tag was missing. "...You too." He replied, taking his card back, then the bags off the counter and made his way to the door.

~POV switch to Randy, a day later!~

By the time it was Friday, Randy had forgotten about the seriousness of the conversation in Jake's basement. Nothing new had happened that was substantial, so it was only natural for him to not care. Besides, Bash had ignored Randy so far, which was a good day in his book.

Randy slouched even more - if that was even possible. Mr. Rotwood had guaranteed that the class could work on their mythology project then proceeded to talk for 30 minutes, and counting. He glanced to his left as Danny gave him a nudge. The purple-haired teen sat up and looked at the paper that Danny gestured to. He resisted a laugh. It was a crude drawing of Rotwood as a talking chair. It was bizarre, but hilarious at the same time. Randy glanced between Danny, Rotwood, and his pencil.

An artist in disguise, Randy sketched Rotwood's toupee on the top left stile. He then drew a mini dragon Jake sitting in the chair, putting a "Dragons exist! I just haven't seen one yet!" Speech bubble next to what was presumingly Rotwood's mouth. Of course, Randy was nonchalant about the entire thing, but Danny couldn't help a snicker. The two looked away from the page as Rotwood called a name, then Randy added a second bubble, "I am a total shoob!"

"Pfff!" Danny let out another giggle.

"ANYTHING HILARIOUS OVER THERE BOYS?!" The two shut up and shook their heads to Rotwood's turn-and-yell maneuver.

"Idiot" Danny wrote on the page when Rotwood turned around.

"Ha!" Randy almost exclaimed. He had no idea what the word actually meant, but from what he heard in the halls, an idiot was basically a shoob.

"Okay Mr. Funnyman." Mr. Rotwood stomped towards the boys, reaching to snatch the page off of the table.

Before Rotwood could take it, Randy reached over and shredded it.

"Why did you rip it? If it weren't anything bad you wouldn't rip it!"

"Well... If I were to show you your head would have exploded, thus, I saved your life. You're welcome." Randy began, putting his left arm on the table, facing the teacher. His tone was the same he used for the talent shows.

"Well that is bogus!"

"As bogus as dragons?"

"Dragons aren't bogus!"

"No? Then this isn't bogus either."

"B-uh-beu-"

"Unless dragons are bogus." Randy gave Rotwood an eyebrow rise.

"Dragons are not bogus!" Rotwood stammered the phrase again.

"Alright then."

Confused, Rotwood returned to the front of the room.

Randy turned to Danny, who had a bewildered look on his face. _"What?"_ he whispered to the ghost.

 _"I didn't know you were that good at lying."_

 _"I wasn't lying, just skewing the truth."_ He gestured to the torn up page, _"Rotwood doesn't know about dragons. If he saw this sketch then his insta-drag-ar would go off and he'd explode into questions of which we couldn't answer and he'd-"_

Danny motioned for him to calm down. _"I underestimated you."_

 _"...Thanks?"_

~Switch to Danny~

Danny was still confused about Randy's hidden potential. he was a really smart kid, why he didn't use that smarts to get good grade? Danny had no idea. Then again, Randy was a ninja. Danny shook his head, turning to Jake.

"So... Do your friends accept me again?" Jake looked worried.

"What? Yeah dude. It took a little bit of convincing, but it's all okay now." To be honest Danny hadn't fully shaken off Jake's betrayal. He knew the reason behind it, but he still had problems with how he did it. The meeting with his friends was more of Tuck trying to convince Danny that Jake is still a friend than the other way around.

"So, then, this dude was all like 'for a friend's return party' and I donno, it seemed kind of sketchy. So I just told him to have a good day. And he left... just like mom's lasagna." Danny and Jake's attention was drawn to a familiar voice.

"Oh," a click of the tongue, "Spusters, chill. People have friends."

"But I'm telling you Trixie." The beanie-wearing kid tossed his hands into the air. "He had this weird vibe, and he bought so many cooking utensils... so... many... cooking... things!"

"What's up guys?" Jake walked over to his two friends, Danny in tow.

"Oh, not much." Trixie said.

"This creepy dude bought cooking stuff from the store I work at!" Spud was still freaking out.

"Cooking stuff? That's not that big of a deal." Danny said, joining.

"Wait, what about class you two?" Trixie shot the boys a look, making sure they could join without any negative comebacks.

"Oh, this is Danny's next class and I have English, which is just over..." Jake looked down the hallway, "there."

"Spud, don't worry about it." Danny reassured the stressed-out teen. "Maybe he was having a baking party and all of his friends were making cake with him."

"...I guess so." Spud rubbed the back of his neck.

"Chill." Trixie offered one more word of comfort before the bell rang.

"Oh- class time." Jake grinned and dashed off, "Cya in third period Danny!"

"Cya!' Danny called back, gave a nod to Trixie and Spud, then walked into his English class.

Today's english class consisted of a socratic seminar about the book _Macbeth_ that the class was reading together. Danny's english teacher was pretty chill, but he wasn't as prepared as he could have been. Saying he only read the first couple of chapters, a few random pages, and the last page. Then again, what teenager actually _likes_ Shakespeare?

The bell rang for the passing period and Danny got out of his chair, relieved that the teacher hadn't noticed his lack of talking. That, or she was going to make him talk twice as much tomorrow. He shook it off and headed towards math class. The Secret Trio all had math together, but that was the only class they had together. Sure, Danny had Mythology with Randy and Music with Jake, but Math was all three of them.

"Yo." Danny looked up and spotted Jake and Randy.

"Sup?" Jake set his bag down next to Danny.

"Not much, how about you?" Randy replied, setting his bag on the other side of Danny's space.

A pair of kids gave the ninja and dragon some dirty looks. They weren't assigned these seats, they kinda just took them.

'Yeah, not much. Say, do you guys have the homework done?" Jake asked.

"Yup!" Randy was already laying out the homework from the night before- all three pages of it.

Another surprise to Danny- Randy was good at math. Each friend had a specialty. Randy's was math, Danny's was english, and Jake's was history. So the three of them had the main subjects covered. Music and PE were both easy to bs. But none of them understood mythology just because of Rotwood's skewed and downright incorrect facts.


	18. Oink Oink Roar

~Time skip to after school!~

Of course, the school day passed by quickly. Sometimes it amazed Danny how fast the day whizzed by. Other days he wondered why they didn't go faster.

"Hmm... We haven't been attacked today yet." Randy commented.

Just as the words were said, a robotic T-Rex crashed through the school's front gates.

Danny gave Randy a look. "Really?"

"What? How was I supposed to know?"

Danny just shook his head and looked around. Thankfully it was an hour past the end of the school day. There was no one around. The group had been hanging out and talking, time just flew away from them.

"Going ghost!" "Dragon up!"

Danny's rings appeared and he changed to his ghost form after a few seconds. Jake's holographic fire dissipated as he donned his dragon form. Randy kind of just appeared in his Ninja suit, which surprised Danny, saying how over-the-top the transformation was.

"Okay, ideas?" Jake asked, ready to leap into action.

The T-Rex was waving its head around madly, destroying everything in sight. It's eyes locked onto Randy, then glanced over the entirety of The Secret Trio. It paused for a second, as if to process the information, then let out a metallic roar and charged towards the trio.

"Ehm... At least it's not destroying the school anymore?" Danny's voice was shaky. He'd never dealt with a T-Rex before.

Randy let out a battle cry and engaged the T-Rex.

~POV switch to Randy~

Randy threw out some ninja stars mid-air, then landed and looked in awe as the robot shrugged off the attack. Randy narrowed his eyes, preparing for a different kind of attack, when Jake and Danny simultaneously shot an ecto beam and pillar of fire on the same spot he threw the stars at. He glanced up and saw the duo in the air, dancing back and forth to dodge the T-Rex's sturdy head as it swung back and forth.

Randy watched and backed off, thinking for a half of a second. The damage was pissing off the robot more than doing what it was supposed to do, which was to say, damage. He threw a couple more shurikens and dodged about, shouting his attacks as per usual. He was somewhat surprised that he was the only one to do so. Just then Danny was batted to the side with a well-aimed tail swing. Randy shouted to Danny, his attention taken for a brief second.

Randy went flying. The wall dented where he landed and he stopped moving for a second to recover his breath. His vision was slightly hazy as he watched Jake get the same treatment. Jake turned human. That couldn't be good. His vision re-focused and he jumped as fast as he could to avoid the T-Rex's charge. The Ninja glanced towards Phantom, who was struggling to get up, but looked relatively uninjured. Randy took stock of the situation. It looked like he was the most sturdy, Danny a close second. Randy dodged another charge and ran over to Jake.

"Yo, buddy." Randy shook the dragon.

He was out cold. Though, he only had a couple of bruises. Probably just the shock factor. Randy turned around, noticing the charging T-Rex and glanced behind him. He took a sharp breath and stood in the way of the robot and his friend. He braced for impact, but the dino was suddenly knocked off of its feet. Randy breathed a sigh of relief as Danny appeared in the air, hand sizzling.

Danny landed and began to speak. "Okay, so our attacks do little damage but his main method of attack is charging." Randy went back to looking at the T-Rex as it got up with a whurr. "So what we have to do is distract it and keep knocking it down. I'll try to freeze it to the ground whenever possible, so that leaves you to find it's control panel and deactivate it."

"Pff, with you around, who needs the Ninja Nomicon?" Randy joked.

"You do." Danny replied with a smirk.

Randy's response was a shrug, then he jumped to the side and tossed a rock at the dino. "Hey! Ugly!" He wasn't sure if the insult would work. A second passed, then its head turned to Randy, along with its gaze.

The Ninja twitched as the robot charged once more, not moving until he saw Danny's ice beam. Randy couldn't hear properly, but he was pretty sure Danny made another ice pun. The T-Rex fell to the ground and Danny took the liberty of freezing the bot to the floor.

~POV switch to Jake~

Jake groaned as his eyes blinked open, most of the pain coming from his left arm. He looked at the hazy colors before him in confusion, then remembered that they were in the middle of a battle. He snapped back to consciousness and spotted Randy on the T-Rex's back, desperately holding onto the bucking machine. Jake caught Danny's eye and the two made eye contact. In that instant, Jake understood what Danny was doing. He winced as Randy was thrown off of the T-Rex's back. The Ninja landed right next to Jake, the wall cracked under the impact.

"Woah dude, you okay?" He remembered a few -what he assumed- seconds ago when he was sent flying with the same force and blacked out.

"Yeah, this is nothing." He grunted and stood back up, rubbing some blood from the corner of his mouth. "This thing's pretty slick. I can't get a good grip."

"What're you trying to do to it?"

"Deactivate it. The control panel is on the back of its neck."

Jake nodded and partially transformed. He had his dragon wings, tail, ears, and claws. "Leave it to me."

Randy gave Jake a distrusting look. "No offence, but you blacked out from one hit."

Jake rolled his eyes, "I have more strength than you think. Trust me, it's like, my one redeeming factor." He paused, "Minus the fact that I'm a dragon. And the fact that I'm really, really cool."

Randy raised an eyebrow, but didn't give much question. He caught Danny's attention and held up a finger, "one more time."

Danny looked worried, but nodded, and continued to dodge the T-Rex, performing the knock-down-maneuver by himself.

"Good thing it's not that smart." Randy chuckled, then grabbed Jake's shirt and took off. "Ninja-tag-team-swap-onto-monster-back!" He tossed Jake onto the back of the beast with no mercy.

"Hey!" Jake protested, then braced for the impact, the breath knocked out of him as he landed.

He shot a glance to Danny, who looked horrified at the idea of Jake going in. The dragon smirked his response, digging his claws into the back of the T-Rex. Jake struggled to stay on the T-Rex's back as it returned to its standing position, and as it realized it had a person on its back. Jake grit his teeth and dug deeper into it's reinforced skin, using all four of his limbs' claws as hooks, then his tail and wings as balance. He climbed his way to the control panel and ripped it open. He leaned down as the bot attempted a rather violent shake off. Jake was getting dizzy with all of the bucking about, but held his own and managed to maul the wires in the circuitry. The dragon continued to hold on with all of his might as the robot slowly stopped bucking, then came to a stop with the sound of escaping steam.

Jake glanced up as Danny swooped in and attempted to remove the teen from the bot. Jake took a half a second and realized his grip was preventing Danny from picking him up. Jake turned all the way human and Danny shot off, grabbing Randy, narrowly avoiding an explosion as the bot self-destructed. He landed rockily on the grass in front of the school's lawn.

The trio laid on the ground where they crash-landed, exhausted. They looked at each other as the school burst into flames and grinned.

"Hahahahaha!" Danny was the first to burst into laughter, "Dude! You're a lot stronger than you look Jake!"

"Pff, I'm nothing compared to how badass this tank was!" Jake nudged Randy.

"Ha! Don't forget who came up with the plan!" Randy nodded towards Danny.

The three laughed for a couple of minutes, then stopped when they heard mumbles.

A couple of feet away McFist was standing in front of the school, a bright pink pig on a leash.

"Pig?" Randy's mouth was covered by Danny, who grabbed Jake and turned the trio invisible.

"Gah! VICEROY!" McFist shook his fist towards the robot, which was now cinders among a school on fire. He mumbled a few things then took his phone out, "Yes? 911? There's a school on fire out here. Just thought I'd let you know." He hung up. Jake was surprised that he didn't break the phone with the way he was gripping it. "Useless robot."

Jake felt a tug on his shirt and looked over his shoulder: Danny had stood up and was trying to inch backwards. Jake stood, followed by Randy, and The Secret Trio snuck out of the scene into the city.

* * *

Badass Randy strikes! :D

Who woulda known about Jake's physical abilities?

What about Danny's cunningness?

Muhahahahhahahahahahah! More to come!


	19. Whoops

Heeeeere we go! Filler number one! :D Hope you enjoy! This one's been stewing ever since I began the story! Of course, It's going to just be inserted into the plot xD

* * *

~POV to Danny, next day~

Danny was still amazed at his friends' abilities from the night before. Despite the fact that the three of them were idiots, they made a stellar team.

"Hey, Randy. How do I become a tank?" Jake asked Randy. "Cuz, I have to step up my game big time."

"Ah-" Danny rolled his eyes as Randy slipped into his know-it-all voice. "That, my friend, is a secret that only the Nomicon knows!" He closed his eyes and pointed to the sky as he said the words. "I was once a scrawny boy like you, no muscle, no stamina. But then, I became the deity of Norrisville-"

"Ninja." Danny corrected under his breath.

"-and a god has to be there for his people. So I just did some working out." He nodded and opened his eyes, "But still it's kinda cool that we get today off." His condescending voice was replaced with his regular tone.

"Well... The school did _kinda_ burst into flames." Jake commented and grinned. "But it's a great excuse to hang out together!"

"Yeah, yeah fair point. Though I feel bad for not inviting Tuck, Sam, and them." Danny kicked the dirt of the playground. The trio were sitting in various places on the playground. Danny was on the bottom of the slide.

"Eh, we need some bonding time now that we're a team." Jake brushed it off. He sat on top of the monkey bars.

"Well..." Randy pulled out his cell and absent-mindedly kicked the railing. He was on the second floor of the jungle gym. "I'll tell Howard to hang out with them all. I'm sure he'll think of something fun."

"Hmm..." Danny still looked skeptical.

"It'll be fine Danny, your friends are smart. They'll find ways to spend their day off." Jake reassured Danny once more.

Danny sighed in defeat, "Okay, fine. But what are we going to do?"

"Good question..." Randy pondered for a second. "Oh! You know, there's this new fortune teller in town."

A pause of silence filled the air.

"...And?" Danny broke the silence.

"We should go!" Randy replied and vaulted over the railing, landing neatly, and turned to Danny. "We should get our fortunes told!"

"Fortunes?" Jake's head twisted in thought, then he scooched around the bar, carefully lowered himself with his hands, and jumped the foot to the ground. "Yeah, sure! I don't believe in these things but it's fun sometimes to go see one!"

Danny briefly thought of reasons not to. "Just so long as the teller isn't Desiree."

"Desiree?"

"Yeah, she's an evil ghost that grants people's wishes and gets stronger as she does so."

"Doesn't sound too evil."

"Until you realize that she can grant the wish of destruction upon the world."

Jake nodded, understanding the gravity of the idea now.

"So... Avoid ghosts, right? No problem!" Randy joined the conversation with a nod.

"I guess." Danny smiled and stood, "Where's this fortune teller?"

"Follow me!" Randy bounced a couple of times then turned and dashed in the direction the fortune teller was in.

~Skip to the teller's place!~

Danny complained once more to Randy about the speed at which they were going, but as per usual, the ninja ignored such a comment. The trio skidded to a stop in front of the trailer-like building.

"Stereotypical creepy fortune teller here we come." Randy forged the way for the other two, opening the door after catching his breath.

"Welcome! I am Madam Kim" A surprisingly young lady sat veiled behind a desk. Her voice was smooth and low. "Please, sit." She gestured to the floor where three pillows sat.

"Hello! We'd like to have three fortunes told please." Randy replied, easily sitting down.

Danny and Jake stepped forward, both giving a hello and bow before taking her up on her offer to sit. Danny decided to let Randy take the lead on this one. Besides, it looked like the ninja was in his element.

"Three fortunes?" The orange-haired lady asked. "Let me divinate your fortunes together."

Danny looked towards the other two as she began to chant and use her 'divine' powers. For some strange reason Danny felt uneasy about the actions she took but was unsure why.

A minute passed, then Madam Kim stopped her chant and looked into her crystal ball, a gasp escaping her lips. "A great battle you will fight soon." She twitched. "Three will lose their powers. A ninja, dragon, and ghost-"

Danny took a second to glance to Jake, who was also looking at Danny.

Her tone changed. "Unless they pay $5 per person to the fortune teller they visit today."

Danny took a second to process what she said.

"What?" Jake asked, clearly confused.

"That is all I saw in this crystal ball." She confirmed, her voice reduced to that of an almost valley-girl tone. "A great battle and the loss of powers if you don't pay me $5. That's the sitch."

"Pff, anyone could tell us that a great battle is coming soon. I hear it almost all the time." Jake protested.

"Yeah, I'm not going to pay. This was a waste of time." Randy stood.

"I-I don't know you guys." Danny rubbed the back of his head. "I don't want to risk it. Our powers are serious business." He rummaged around his pockets and came up with the bill. "Besides, how would she know about the ninja, ghost, and dragon thing?"

"The Ninja is a public figure. Danny Phantom is known around the world." Randy rolled his eyes and went out the door, Jake soon after.

Danny shook his head and paid the fortune teller. He wasn't willing to risk it and his instinct was right most of the time. Besides, five dollars wouldn't be too much of a hit to his bank account. Madam Kim nodded when he paid, ushering him out. He complied and rejoined his two friends, who had already forgotten about the encounter.

"Alright, well that was a bust." Jake commented, "But what should we do next?"

"That's the only idea I had." Randy frowned. "Unless you guys want to play _Grave Puncher 3_."

"What's that?"

"Well-" Randy groaned as a pulsating light interrupted his explanation. "Ugh, guys, gimmie a sec. The Nomicon is calling for me."

"What?" Danny asked this question. Before he got his answer, Randy had already opened the book, letting out a weird sound and going limp.

Danny's eyebrows furrowed and he turned to Jake, who shrugged. It was the first time either of them had seen him do something like that.

"Gah!" Randy shouted, slamming the book shut.

"Ah!" Danny and Jake both jumped at the sudden action.

"Quick! Danny, Jake, transform." Randy pulled his ninja mask out of nowhere.

"What?" Danny asked and looked around, making sure no one was around.

"The NinjaNomicon said a bunch of cryptic words. For some reason I think it was referring to our powers." He placed the mask on his face.

Danny averted his eyes so he wouldn't be blinded by the flashy outfit change. He waited. Nothing happened. Danny turned back to Randy. Randy was still himself, with the mask on his face. Danny looked over at Jake who was staring at his hands in horror.

"I can't change!" Both the ninja and dragon said at the same time.

"Eh?" Danny began to panic. He looked between Jake and Randy, then at himself. "Going ghost?" He asked nervously, then willed himself to change. A moment later his rings passed by his face and he looked at his hands. White gloves.

"Why can you turn ghost but I can't go dragon?"

"I-I don't know." Danny walked forward, then something clicked in his mind. He turned around to face the fortune teller's caravan. Just as he was about to walk in and beg his friends to pay the five dollars the building suddenly transformed. Mechanical whirrs came from the building and Danny watched in shock as the trailer turned into an airship and took off, leaving the trio in the kicked-up dirt.

Jake, Randy, and Danny stood there and blinked.

"Oops." Randy's voice sounded defeated.

"Aw man." Jake frowned.

Danny gave a smirk, "I told you so. you should've payed the teller." He then thought for a moment and grabbed the two boys by their shirts. "Let's go find ourselves a Desiree."

"But you said-"

"This isn't time to think about the consequences. You guys need your powers back." Danny held back a giggle.

"It's not that funny." Jake complained.

"To you maybe it isn't. But it's hilarious to me." He joked, then turned back to his serious tone. "But no, we need to get you two back to normal."

~Time and place skip to Desiree~

"...So you have wished it so it shall be." The wish-granting ghost let out a sigh of defeat as Randy asked for their powers back. She rose up and granted the wish. The effects were definitely less flashy than normal.

Danny nodded when Jake and Randy gave him a questioning look.

"Dragon up...?" Jake asked more than stated.

Red suddenly filled Danny's view as Jake's fire came and went. He was a dragon again.

"Oh dude, seriously?" Randy looked like a kid in the candy store as he put the mask on, its flashy transformation revealing itself. "Oh dude, bruce!" He held up a high five, which Jake took.

Danny rolled his eyes, "so what did we learn today?"

"Don't go to fortune tellers." Randy replied instantly.

"Yeah, and remember to bring money with you wherever you go!" Jake grinned.

Danny shook his head. While both of those answers were not technically incorrect, they were wrong.


	20. Drama Drama!

Chapter 20~ Drama Drama!

Alrighty, that filler was 'aight. Don't worry there'll be better ones xD (I hope)

Also- Don't forget to suggest what you want to see in the story! The filler for your guys' suggestions is coming up in a little while!

* * *

~POV back to Vlad :3~

"No you bumbling buffoon!" Vlad Masters whisper-shouted to Hannibal McFist. "We're building these new water pipes to support the use of local resources and save the town money to spend on other things! Not 'because McFist industries want it'!"

McFist's smile wavered, but he kept the grin plastered on his face. "I've never announced a joint project before give me a break!"

The two older men were giving a PA about a new 'project' they were doing together. The only thing they were supposed to say about it was that the mayor, Vlad, was supporting McFist's industry's attempt to make the economy better. But of course the idiot messed that scheme up. Now Masters would have to cover McFist's blunder.

Vlad turned to the live audience. "First off, I would like to thank you for voting me as you mayor over the other two previous ones. It means a lot to me." He put his hand on McFist's shoulder. "What my fellow colleague is trying to say is that the McFist industries want these new water pipes to further the development of the town in subtle but effective ways. We're going to use the tax money we gather from the citizens of this town to make this town into a city worth visiting. So please give us your support once more. This process will not take long and you won't even notice the difference in the quality of water or price of it."

Upon Vlad's pause, the audience performed a polite round of applause. The project wasn't going to be widely known; Vlad called it "pre-planning for a certain trio of kids". The half-ghost wasn't going to allow a couple of kids to mess up this master plan. For a moment his anger rose at the thought of Daniel, then he remembered that he was in public and covered his scowl with a sweet smile.

"Thank you for being so understanding. Construction will start immediately. Please do not be alarmed at the presence of McFist's robotic apes. They are there to support the town and prevent injuries to the citizens."

"Y-yes! That's right." McFist stammered as Vlad finished his multi-word speech. He then gestured forward one of said robotic apes, "this is what they look like."

"We're showing you now so that you know what will be helping our citizens and are not alarmed by such a being. Please, feel free to come up and have a conversation with the ape. You will find that he is quite friendly and supportive." Vlad bowed, his habitual manners shining through. "Now when you enjoy the banquet provided we would appreciate it if you kept in mind the words spoken here today."

The audience of wealthy landowners clapped again, this time with more enthusiasm. With a smile still on his face he turned to McFist, his anger apparent in the undertone of his voice. "Now, Mr. McFist. If you would so kindly entertain our guests I'm going to go start our little 'project'. And please, don't make me look bad."

When McFist nodded, Vlad turned to the audience and bowed once more before getting off of the makeshift stage. In this point of time Vlad's image mattered more than anything else he did. Well, save for the 'tasks' he was sent to do. But at this point, all the tasks he was given involved him spending money. In that respect, Vlad was angry. But on the other hand... Vlad shook his head and began to order the robo apes around, making sure that the water he needed was being routed to the correct spot.

~Viceroy's turn! ouo~

The scientist looked under the microscope, a couple of "Hmm... Fascinating." 's hovered in the near-silent air.

He took a break from his research and gave a sigh of relief. "Ohhhh, I love it when I get the lab to myself! Right Otto... Nicolas?" He looked at each pet in turn with loving eyes.

The tiny robot whirred to life and circled Viceroy, who in turn giggled like a child. Nicolas just sat in his bed with a blank stare off into space, which enticed the mad scientist to walk over and pat him on the head.

"But still." Viceroy turned back to the microscope as Otto landed in his black hair. "Ghost genes are something else." He looked down the scope and watched the cells move around. "Just a smidgen of ecto is alive, of course, not sentient, but alive like a red blood cell." He thought for a moment and reached up to pet Otto's head. "It just leads me to believe that ghosts bleed ecto instead of blood." Viceroy let out a laugh as he said the suspicion. "Of course that makes sense. They aren't alive yet functioning. If they don't have blood like humans do why wouldn't they just run on a blood-like substance."

Viceroy glanced up as a sharp alarm sounded throughout the lab. He dropped everything and dashed to the main control room in worry. He then let out a sigh of relief as he recognized the alert to be a simple "found target" sound. He lingered for a second on the observation robot's feed. The boy known as Daniel Fenton was under surveillance. He knew that Daniel was a boy to watch from Vlad's accounts of his alter ego- Danny Phantom. Viceroy couldn't help to be suspicious of the kids that this Daniel hung out with. Jake Long and Randy Cunningham. Something seemed odd with those two. Viceroy couldn't put his finger on it, but Daniel seemed to be ultra friendly towards them.

The only other people that Daniel was that friendly with were Samantha Manson and Tucker Foley, both of whom were confirmed to know his alter ego. So there was a possibility that one of them was The Ninja and the other was the American Dragon. Although which one were which alter ego Viceroy wasn't sure yet. However, the organization behind Vlad Masters and Hannibal McFist didn't bother to figure out these details. Besides, Viceroy didn't trust Vlad Masters/Plasmius enough to take the information about Daniel. The mad scientist felt that the adult half-ghost was hiding something from the alliance.

There was something going on between Danny Phantom, the American Dragon, and The Ninja though. That much was certain. The trio seemed to always be together now. When the alliance's first attempt at a killing machine ran away and encountered the three arch nemeses the trio seemed dysfunctional, as if it was their first time meeting. But after the battle with the T-Rex... something was different. So much so that Viceroy suspected that they had met each other's alter ego. Otherwise they wouldn't work together that well.

"VICEROY!"

The scientist's thoughts were broken as he groaned at the familiar battle cry.

~POV switch to Danny!~

Third period was Danny's favorite period of the day. Not because it was math, but because the Secret Trio all had math class together. The math teacher had finished his lecture for the day and given the last twenty minutes to the students as "work time". Of course all of the students instantly stopped doing anything relating to geometry and hopped over to their friends' table.

Danny led the seat-change and made his way to Randy, Jake close behind.

"Okay so-" Danny began.

"Is this about Vlad again?" Jake interrupted

"What? Pfff- N-"

"All you talk about is Vlad nowadays Danny." Randy pouted.

Danny got serious, placing his head on his hands. "Well. How can I not? My biggest enemy is on the move and I can't even find out what he's doing."

Jake picked up his pencil and twirled it a few times. "Well, I doubt that the Huntsclan is doing anything and they haven't shown up in a while."

"But what if they are doing something? Wouldn't that make the magical world in trouble?"

"Yeah, but-"

"No buts!" Danny snapped and sharply waved his hand in front of him, his stress getting the better of him. "If we don't know what they're doing then the world is in trouble!" He gestured to Randy, somewhat angry, "What if The Sorcerer was planning to escape?"

"He's always planning to escape." Randy replied, his tone even, as if he was trying to calm Danny down.

"But what if he came up with something that would work?" Danny's mind reeled, the built up worry and fear coming out in his words. "What if our enemies teamed up and are working on a plan that will release The Sorcerer- the literal destroyer of all existence?" He took a deep breath, "I wouldn't put it past Vlad to try and screw over the world. He released the Ghost King once and greedily tried to take the ruins of the Earth for himself." Danny took another breath, "Of course I stopped him, but what if he succeeded?"

"That's... A lot of 'What if' 's Danny." Jake stopped his pencil twirling. "I think we should just deal with what's in front of us. At least that stuff's concrete."

Danny shook his head, his anger continuing to build. _They just..._ "Don't understand."

Danny looked away from his teammates and grabbed his bag as the bell rang. He marched out of the door, an icy breath escaped his lips. _Perfect_.


	21. Bagel?

I'm just gonna reply to two reviews that I've gotten recently-

Both are by YusoYagari

1) Danny clocks in at 110 MPH. The highest recorded speed for Jake when he was flying not to get hit but a boulder. 179 MPH.

2) But he was at the test. Also I ignored when Randy acted all surprised seeing Phantom and the American Dragon. He's met them before. You really are inconsistent huh.

1\. I had no idea that Jake was faster than Danny! :o I'll remember this in the future, thanks for telling me! However, in regards to the race, I am going to maintain that in a prolonged period of time Danny would win because he has more endurance than Jake does. Jake'll just be better at bursts of speed- I'll definitely use that in the future!

2\. Yeah, I do recognize the inconsistency in that chapter. I realized it after publishing it. But I'm not planning on changing it because then I'd have to rewrite at least 1 chapter after to make this new change make sense. Plus, I only started to plan this story when I got to chapter 16 xD There's bound to be inconsistencies/errors in those earlier chapters because I was writing on a whim instead of on a plan. So, yeah, I'm sorry if that bothered any of you readers, I'll try to make sure it doesn't happen again~!

Now, without further ado, "Chapter 21: Bagel?"!

* * *

~POV to Jake~

Jake glanced over at Randy, an unspoken agreement in their eyes. "I'm going." Jake said the two words before Randy could.

"But it would be easier-"

"Isn't The Ninja famous?"

"Yes, bu-"

"It would be easier for me to go because I'm _not_ famous." Jake took a second to let the fact that he said that sink in. "I'm not going to have fans flocking my every movement and stalking whatever I do to post it as big news online."

Randy opened his mouth, then closed it, defeated.

Jake nodded his victory and started out, shouldering both his and Danny's bags. "These'll be in my locker!" He gave Randy one last nod then turned out of the classroom.

The dragon successfully wove his way to his locker, stuffing the two bags into it unceremoniously. He took a second to slam the door shut before looking around the crowded area. First lunch was in session. That meant that he'd have to fight his way through hungry teenagers trying to be the first in line. He glanced over at the wall longingly, wishing for half a second that he had Danny's ability to go through walls. This entire escape situation would be easier if he could. Jake shook off the thought and plowed his way through the crowd, managing to make his way through with only a small hint of his dragon strength.

Jake pushed his way out of the school's side doors, plastering himself against the wall. He looked around as slowly as he dared, then sighed in relief as he confirmed that no one was around. He relieved the wall of his presence and glanced around once more. Again, there was no one in sight. He then transformed, his usual catchphrase missing for once.

Jake took to the sky, trying to scent the air for Danny's smell. It was faint, but his dragon nose managed to catch a wiff of the ghost kid. He followed the scent, realizing how far away Danny had gone in such a short amount of time. Jake could, in fact, go faster than Danny, but he knew that Danny's endurance was better, therefore the ghost could keep up a relatively high speed for a long time. At this point, Jake could only hope follow him via his scent. The dragon took to the sky, following Danny's trail as best as he could.

~POV to Danny!~

Danny stopped his flight, landing in the nearby swamp. He could have sworn that there was a ghost in the area. He kneeled down, looking for tracks despite knowing that ghosts fly. More than anything he used the physical inconsistency to keep his mind off of the fight he just had with his friends. The flight over here had cooled off Danny's head a bit and he realized how childish he had sounded. Yet, he still wasn't ready to admit that he over-stressed about the whole situation. In reality, they had _no idea_ what was going to happen. Danny didn't like the possibilities. The 'what if' part of the conversation was worrying Danny the most. If they couldn't see how important this was then Danny-

He shook the thoughts out of his mind. He wasn't going to think about it right now. His ghost sense went off and he glanced up, recognizing the faint silhouette of a ghost. Danny couldn't quite put his finger on who it was yet. Another thing that made him nervous. He paused, a rustle off in the bushes. The ghost boy shook his head. _My imagination._ He stood, then yelped as he was suddenly shot into the air. Disoriented, Danny tried to understood what had happened, all the while bouncing in the air. _Wait... Bouncing?_ Danny facepalmed (as best as he could since he was swinging). _Of course!_ Randy had said something about this in class once. Someone lived in the swamp outside of the school- Booray? Something like that. Danny sighed, the bouncing coming to a stop. Just as the ghost kid began to turn intangible he froze.

 _There's that sound again..._ Danny looked around. He was certain that someone was rustling about the thick foliage.

"Ah- dere be a kid in this here swamp of mine." Danny held back a gasp as a figure emerged from the brush. The man was stocky, muscles obviously trying to rip off his shirt.

"W-who are you?" Danny asked, scared slightly by the red-head.

The man narrowed his eyes, causing his red bandana to shift a small bit. "I be Catfish Booray and this here be my swamp. Who might you be?" The man stroked his beard in question, then gave a toothy grin. "Well it don matter who you is, my pets will eat all the same!" He turned, presumingly to call his pets.

"Eat?" Danny squeaked, "but I'm not that tasty!"

Booray paused and looked over at Danny. "Why ain't ya?"

"Well just look at me- I'm super skinny and stringy!" Danny flailed his arms as he spoke.

"Oh, well that be a shame." The man thought for a moment.

 _Is he...?_ Danny's stupid-o-meter went wild. "Yeah so you should let me go!"

"Why would I let you go?"

"Well you can't eat me so-"

Booray recoiled. "Why would I be the one to eat you? The eatin' be for my pets!" He then paused and proudly puffed out his chest. "I be vegetarian."

"A vegetarian... That lives in a swamp..." Danny's fear disappeared as his tone became monotone. "You know that swamps have probably the least amount of diversity in regards to plant life right?"

"What?" Booray shot around, "No! My swamp be plenty di-di-" he tried to say the word that Danny said, "di-er-sa-tay."

Danny rolled his eyes, "Okay well I'll take my leave now." Danny phased through the rope, causing Booray to freeze.

"Wha-" The man's eyes turned from shock to fury. "No one be escapin' my traps!" He lunged forward, catching Danny off guard.

"Ah! Hey!" Danny fell to the ground, Booray pinning him down. Danny rolled his eyes. "You can only hope to catch me with such an action." Danny laughed at Booray's confused face. "What, have you never seen a ghost before?"

"No I have not." Booray responded bluntly. Realization dawned on him. "You be a ghost?" To Danny's nod he continued, "well, say hi to me grandma will ya?" He changed his grip, catching Danny's neck before he could do anything.

Danny struggled, attempting to kick the swamp dude. He began to panic as the edges of his vision turned darker. The ghost kid clawed at Booray, forgetting about his intangibility in his panicked state. Suddenly the weight of Booray was lifted off of him and he coughed, instantly sitting up to gasp in air.

"Yo Phantom, I thought you couldn't be choked to death!" Danny glanced up and spotted Jake. "Especially since you're already dead!" The dragon extended his... hand?

"Heh, neither did I!" Danny took Jake's offer and stood up.

"So- why are you in this swamp?"

"Well-"

"Why you be ignorin' me?" A roar came from one of the bushes and Booray jumped out of them, attempting to tackle Jake.

The dragon reacted quickly and turned, dodging the tackle with his superior speed. "Hey not cool man!" The dragon punched Booray's back and the swamp man shot to the floor, causing the ground to slightly crack under the impact of the punch.

Danny's eyes widened. "Wow, okay. Remind me to never get in an arm wrestling match with you."

Jake grinned, the humanistic expression slightly awkward on the dragon's face. "Let's get outta here, can you fly?"

"Yeah." Danny replied, coughing one last time before hovering. "I'll race you back?"

"Nah!" Jake replied almost instantly, to Danny's surprise. "If we take longer we can wait longer before going back to class!"

"Of course." Danny laughed, starting off in the direction of the school. "By the way should I call your hands... hands? Or claws? Or talons?" He paused, "How about front appendages?"

Jake took a second to move his front appendage. "Well, I'd call them-"

~Time skip! It's afterschool and they're walking home. Randy waited for the two of em, but the rest of the friends went home ahead of time for one reason or another~

"Oh- Catfish! I know him!" Randy grinned, then laughed. "He thinks my name is Raginald Bagel!"

"Seriously?" Danny asked, then thought of him. "Actually I wouldn't put it past him."

"How did you meet the creepy swamp dude?" Jake poked his head around Danny.

"Well I got caught in one of his traps." Randy answered without thinking, then tried to cover it up. "I-I was just myself at the time so I didn't have my super ninja reaction time!"

Danny laughed, "I got caught in his trap too!" He then paused, causing the other two to stop their walking a couple of steps later.

"What's up Danny?"

"Guys... I'm sorry about how I acted earlier today." He rubbed the back of his neck out of habit and nerves. "Even if I'm stressed out I shouldn't blow up on you like that."

A second of silence befell the group, then Jake spoke up. "Dude, it's fine! We all get uber-stressed out!"

"Yeah Danny." Randy chuckled, "besides, I'm kinda thankful."

"Why?" Danny asked, glancing up at him from the sidewalk.

"You worry enough for all three of us!" He sighed, "It's kinda a relief that I don't have to worry all the time!"

Jake walked over and clapped Danny's back, causing Danny to wince. "We're friends. It's kinda our job to deal with each other's bullshit!"

"Oh! speaking of totally wonk things-"

"I, frankly, don't care!" Jake laughed and swung his arms over both boys, causing the the two to crouch due to his short height.

Danny grinned, "you guys, thanks for dealing with my outbursts!"

"No prob man, just expect a serious, city-destroying outburst from Jake soon." Randy smirked.

"What? Why?" Jake blinked, curious.

Randy reached down and tapped Jake's head. "You're it!" He howled and broke from Jake's grip, dashing off.

"Hey!" Jake grinned, tapping Danny. "You're it!"

Danny laughed, then took a second to watch his friends run away from him. He smiled.

* * *

Wow what a cheesy ending! ovo

I just wanna thank you guys again for showing your support for me! It means a lot when you read and review my work! Thanks for dealing with my irregular updates! 3

Also- just a reminder! The suggestion-based filler chapter is coming in a little while! Keep suggesting things for me to put in it!

Right now I have a request to put in a female OC that has hypnotism or something of the sort and enchants the main three to do something evil/bad/neglectful! If you want to help me create this character then pm me with some ideas or something! 3 atm she'd be an average-looking girl!

I would really appreciate any R&R I get! They inspire me to keep going forward! Thanks for being so awesome you guys/gals and dealing with my terribly random chapter updates 3

*edit* I got a really cool OC idea from a follower on a different website this is on so imma use that one! :D


	22. Full Moon Madness

Buckle yourself in because this is going to be a longer chapter! A lot happens~

Also I'm going to take some artistic liberty here in regards to unicorns xD Sorry if it offends you guys/gals because it might be wrong~

Kind of a lot of time skips/POV switches too... Sorry about that .

One last thing, I promise. Remember that I'm tweaking the side/bad guy characters a bit to fit the seriousness/differentness for my story. I hope you guys are willing to accept my interpretation of the character later in this chapter owo Don't worry, they'll be less badass when he/she isn't fighting xD

* * *

~time skip to a couple of days later and to Jake's POV~

Jake shot out of bed, changing into his clothes at lightning speed. He then looked over at his dragon-themed alarm clock, an unconscious eye roll taking his features. He was going to be late. Again. He jumped down the stairs as fast as he dared and rushed to his kitchen. The dragon's mom was calmly sitting at the dining table drinking a cup of coffee and reading a newspaper, Jake's breakfast laid out on display.

His mom glanced up from her paper, presumingly because of the sound of footsteps. "Oh! Morning Jake! You're going to be late you know."

"Yeah, I know." Jake started heading out the door, grabbing his skateboard.

"Don't forget your helmet and lunch!"

Jake groaned, then went and picked up both mentioned items.

"What about breakfast?" She gestured to the food, steam coming off of it.

"I'll be late if I stay for it. Sorry mom, but I gotta skip it today." Jake smiled.

Jake's mom nodded knowingly and waved him off, taking the plate for herself. "Tonight's a full moon."

Jake then started back towards the door when he paused, listening to his mom's statement. He shrugged, what did a full moon have to do with him? He opened the door, only to be stopped again.

"Jake." Gramps' voice sounded through the hallway. "Don't shrug off a full moon. You remember what a full moon is right?"

The teen slowly turned around, attempting to look innocent. "E-ehm..."

"Unicorns?"

"Unicorns... visit... on full moons!" Jake nodded as he remembered, "I'll be sure to protect them tonight! Maybe I can-"

"I would not invite that ghost and ninja duo."

Jake whipped around, "why not?"

Lao lifted an eyebrow at his actions. "Unicorns are easily spooked, Danny's a literal ghost and from what I've heard this ninja is not very stealthy."

" 'Kay..." The dragon pouted for half a second. He snapped himself out of his sulk and hopped down the stairs. Jake thought about inviting the two of them anyways, but shook his head. If they failed the consciences would be massive... He didn't want to put that kind of pressure on his new friends. That was why he often tried to leave Spud and Trixie behind despite their willingness to join him. Jake threw his skateboard to the ground. He didn't even bother to close the door as he started towards school, glancing up to the sky. _Looks like it's going to rain today..._

~Once more timeskip to just after school~

Jake took his skateboard off of his shoulder and tossed it to the sidewalk- the clang of its landing ringing for a second. He shivered as he felt a raindrop.

"Gah! I don't like the rain! It's, like, so gloomy!" Jake turned to spot Randy complaining.

"Really? I don't mind it." Danny grinned.

"Yeah, but you don't a suit that will stay soaked even after you put it away!" He frowned, "all the suit does when it's a mask is repair itself and replenish its weapon supply- everything else I have to do myself!" He ruffled his hair in frustration. "I think I'm just going to skip being a superhero today!"

"And you can also phaze through rain." Jake commented to Danny, somewhat ignoring Randy's complaints.

Danny nodded, "you know, you guys have fair points." A small silence formed as Danny paused. He then continued to break said silence. "By the way- my family is going to use our new 'Fenton Indoor Barbeque' for dinner. You want to join us?"

"Aw dude, BBQ! I'm so there!" Randy replied almost instantly, his earlier complaints gone.

"I..." Jake kicked the dirt as both pairs of eyes turned to him. "I can't I've got this... thing."

"Thing?" Danny took a step towards jake. "Can we help?" His barbecue forgotten.

"Gramps said that I shouldn't ask you guys." Jake glanced up as another raindrop fell on his nose.

"Since when do you listen to that de-evolved snake?" Randy chuckled, his insult obviously meant to be good-natured.

"Haha, fair point!" Jake brightened. Maybe they would be able to help like he first thought. He paused. "You guys know that this is going to put a lot of pressure on you and stuff, right?"

"Pff. We deal with that kinda stuff all the time!" Randy waved off the warning.

Jake sighed, "well okay- here goes." He took a breath. "I'm going to guard some unicorns tonight."

"Unicorns?" Danny blinked, "Like, unicorns unicorns?"

"Well, yeah, if they weren't unicorns I'd call them something else." Jake replied, his tone holding the _'duh'_ attitude.

"Why only tonight?" Randy asked now, more curious about it than before. "I mean, if unicorns do exist-" His pause revealed his belief in the subject. "Don't they frolic around keeping their forest safe or something?"

"Unicorns only come to this world on a full moon."

"This world?" Danny once more took over the conversation. "Like the ghost portal?"

"I think so... but I've never been in the unicorn's land so I wouldn't know what it looks like. Plus, they can't enter and exit whenever they want." Jake nodded, satisfied with his explanation. "They can only come here on full moons."

"What happens if they don't make it back in time?" The ghost frowned as a handful of raindrops landed on him.

"That's what I'm here for!" Jake put his arms on his hips, taking a superhero stance.

"Oh so... Like a bodyguard?" Randy asked, then rubbed his chin. "If the contractor is a herd of unicorns that is." He glanced up to Jake, "is it even called a herd?"

"Yeah, they're in herds." Jake turned serious for a half a second, "Here's the catch- I can't let even one unicorn break from the pack and stay in this world. Else the entire herd loses their magic and become regular horses."

"Wow those are high stakes!" Randy blinked as he commented.

Jake simply shrugged. "Yeah, well, I warned ya. The magical world often does things like this."

"Scary."

"Well forget my BBQ, let's guard some unicorns!" Danny grinned.

~Time skip to late at night and Danny POV switch- they're in the park waiting for the unicorns~

"When are they coming?" Randy whined as he poked the bush the trio was behind. He was, in fact, in his ninja suit despite complaining about its affiliation with rain. His solution? Bring an umbrella. Said umbrella was occupied by the three at the moment.

"Soon." Jake replied, intently staring into the rainstorm.

Danny took a breath to speak, but quickly closed it as a light blue portal appeared in the sky, bending the rain around it. The ghost's eyes widened as several pure-white horses trotted out of the anomaly. He glanced over to Jake for confirmation but rolled his eyes instead. Jake was giving Randy a 'told ya so' look. However, the look was all he needed for confirmation. The horses grazing before him were actually unicorns. Like, unicorns unicorns.

Danny shot his vision to the right. His eyes narrowed. He could have sworn that he saw something.

"What's wrong Danny?" The teen leaned his head back a little to acknowledge the fact that he heard Jake's words.

"I thought I saw something. That's all." Danny turned back to the other two, only to see Randy's face (or skin around his eyes since that's all the ghost could see) turn pale. "What's-"

Danny turned to where Randy pointed. Dread overcame Danny as he registered the shadow to be a tall man clad in green and black. An old, worn dragon skull was atop the man's head. Danny slowly turned from the the man and glanced over at Jake, who suddenly jumped off over the bush, changing forms with gritted teeth.

"Wait!-" Danny followed after Jake, knowing he was going to attack without thinking.

"Aw man." Danny didn't bother to look over, hearing the soft clink of the umbrella.

Focused on Jake, Danny reached forward to tackle to dragon, only to find himself grabbing onto him. After a moment of panicked grasping he called his name. "Jake!"

"What?" Jake growled, not slowing down. "That's the Huntsman! He's here to kill to the unicorns!"

Danny blinked, glancing up at the man (who, somehow, hadn't realized that the trio was after him). "Seriously? What if he's just watching?"

"That's a McNet!" Randy appeared next to the duo, his suit already soaked. At Danny's confused face Randy rolled his eyes and continued. "The McNet is used around the world as a fishing net. It's made by McFist Industries." He paused. "McFist Industries works for the Sorcerer if you don't remember."

Danny glanced back to the Huntsman. He was waiting for something. Perhaps the perfect time to catch one of the unicorns. Danny's eyes narrowed as he thought of the perfect plan to counter him.

~POV to the Huntsman~

 _Complete annihilation of the mythical race..._ The man mused, an unseen smirk on his face. _Plus, the pleasure of killing some unicorns._ The Huntsman stood straight, watching the herd behind his veiled face. He shifted the net in his hand and lifted it to inspect it once more. McFist had guaranteed that this net could hold any creature. The Huntsman's eyes narrowed as he continued to examine the contraption. Would it truly hold the unicorns? He glanced up to said creatures, a scowl now on his face. They were so ugly. _Why would anyone want to protect those... things?_ His thoughts turned to the American Dragon and his scowl deepened.

 _Where is this 'protector of mythical creatures'?_ He glanced around the area, lowering the net in the process. The seasoned warrior had an uneasy feeling- as if someone was nearby. He dismissed the thought after peering through the thick rain. He turned back to the unicorns, once more scoffing at their impossible, sickly sweet beauty. Even through the heavy mist of rain they glowed with magical power. He had waited months for this moment. The Huntsman took a step forward and froze. He slowly looked around, not moving his head. Through the rain on his dragon skull he heard the rustle of a bush. Another smirk crossed the confident man's face. _The child's playing his games again_. He shook his head lightly, then continued forward.

"NOW JAKE!" The Huntsman flinched at the yell and rapidly looked around for the source of the voice, unable to find such a thing.

The man then noticed the American Dragon barreling towards his position. Instinctively the man went to dodge, only to go nowhere. He took a split second to look at his feet and it dawned on him. _Vald was right about the ice powers..._ In the half a second he took to recognize his immobility the wind was knocked out of him and he was sent flying.

The flight left the man with a sense of weightlessness before he soared into a tree. The force caused the man to blank out for a half a second and he coughed a couple of droplets of blood. The Huntsman stood back up, the tree behind him now split and on the ground. He gave a light laugh as he saw this, "I see that you've gotten stronger _American Dragon_." The Huntsman brushed off a speck of dirt from his shoulder and cracked his neck and a couple of knuckles. "If you keep this up I may have to take you serio-" The Huntsman stopped mid-word and caught a handful of ninja stars coming from his right side. He brought the weapons forward, another smirk on his face as he heard a small 'tch' of complaint from the star's owner. "We were right. A ghost, dragon, and ninja teamed up..." He muttered and took a few steps forward.

The Huntsman looked towards the herd of unicorns, the white blobs were still grazing peacefully. A quick thought passed the Huntsman as he wondered if they were deaf. A short, curt laugh emitted from him. _Of course they are_. He looked around to see if he could find his trio of enemies, the rain clouding his vision a bit. He knew the three of them were lurking about, but wasn't certain where. On a whim he tossed the ninja stars he possessed, listening to each one as they missed their targets. A small smile crossed his face as he heard a grunt in the distance. One of them hit someone. He then began to march in the direction, taking his sweet time. Just as he was closing in on the source of the grunt a small voice in his mind reminded him of his mission.

"Don't cross me." He simply said into the foliage, "kids like you should go home and eat some cookies."

To this he turned around and re-focused his attention to the unicorns. _Their horns are an important ingredient... I cannot fail. Especially after I made that deal._

~POV back to Jake~

Jake Long gritted his teeth once more, grasping at his left shoulder (in his human form) in a feeble attempt to stop the bleeding, ignoring the cut on his left cheek. He glared at Randy for a half a second, _'why are your stars so sharp!'_

The ninja caught the glare from the other side of the small clearing and jumped in slight fear. Jake blinked and sighed, turning to the Huntsman.

"O-" Jake covered Danny's mouth with his injured arm before the ghost could say anything. For a second Danny complained about it, but noticed why Jake was doing such a thing and stopped his talking.

"Don't cross me." Jake froze as the Huntsman's voice held venom he hadn't witnessed before. "Kids like you should go home and eat some cookies."

Dread befell Jake as he realized he was going to die. He then got angry at the dread. _I'm not going to go down without a fight_. Just as he was about to jump from the bush the Huntsman turned around and towards the unicorns. Jake glanced over to Randy, who, despite being full of fear, was about to attempt another attack. Jake's grip tightened on Danny as the ghost tried to yell at him to stop.

Randy as going to attack whether they wanted him to or not. Jake let got of Danny as he recognized the look in the ghost's eyes. Another plan was coming to him. One that the halfa didn't like. Jake nodded to Danny, letting him know that he was here to execute it. The dragon looked up and spotted Randy's sixth fail. At least he ninja was able to distract the Huntsman. Not very much though, since the Huntsman plowed through each attack, close enough to almost touch the beasts. Jake clicked his tongue, despite the fact that the creatures were magical, they weren't as cautious in the rain. Probably because they thought that they are camouflaged.

"Ninja! Fight him!" Danny shouted, catching all of the people off guard. "Buy me some time!"

~Randy POV~

"Roger!" Randy leapt from the bush he had been flinging stars from, complete trust in the ghost.

A shiver of fear ran down his being as he faced his tall adversary. He gulped, then steeled himself. "NINJA SCARF THROW!" He tossed his scarf at the Huntsman, who simply bashed it out of the way.

"You? Hold me off?" The man scoffed. Randy felt like he was smirking under his mask (being a fellow mask wearer). "Amusing."

"Well... Let's see how your power sizes up with my bruce ninja skillz!" Randy then shoved the rest of his fear into one of the deepest corners of his being and threw himself at the Huntsman.

Randy tossed himself at the Huntsman, his inherited ancient ninja knowledge clashing with the Huntsman's mere years of practice. The two were surprisingly equal in strength. Randy was slower though. Often times Randy tossed a punch, only to receive one of equal weight. Several times the teen was sent flying into a tree, destroying the poor vegetation. He glanced at said tree destruction and vowed to come back and plant new trees. Randy rolled to the left and managed to dodge a blow that surely would have broken open his skull.

The Ninja stood back up, attempting to catch his breath, somewhat admiring his adversary. The small sparkle in the Huntsman's eyes indicated that he felt the same way. Randy chuckled. Just as he was about to run in for another attack the Huntsman disappeared. The Ninja blinked, then frantically looked around for his enemy. A moment later all of Randy's breath escaped him and he recognized the color of the floor. He gritted his teeth as several sickening cracks came from one of his limbs. He felt himself take to the air again, then land on the now-dented ground. Randy coughed a mouthful of blood as he struggled to keep his consciousness. He slowly moved his arms to push himself, only to find that his right arm was the only one responding.

"You're still going to get up? I thought I broke you." A sarcastic and overly bored sigh came in the form of the Huntsman's voice.

Randy's fear escaped from its corner and leapt to his mind, making it race as he felt something- no, _someone_ sit on his back. Randy gulped, his vision blurry. He could only imagine that this is what it felt like to get hit by Jake full force. If that was the case, how did the Huntsman manage to stand up after something like that? His heart beat faster than ever before as he felt that the Huntsman was leaning down- presumingly to finish him off. Suddenly, the weight was lifted and Randy caught a glimpse of a black and white jumpsuit. A smirk came across Randy's hidden face.

In his haze he only managed to catch a few of Danny's attacks. The two were pretty even as well- but this was more of a tactics battle than a physical one. They never touched each other. It seemed like they were both battling with... lasers? Plus, Danny was succeeding in pushing the Huntsman back from the unicorns and more towards the two teens. Randy's vision narrowed but he forced them to stay open, unsure of his condition. At least one arm was broken. He knew that. Danny stopped moving, facing the Huntsman, Randy, and -Randy assumed- Jake.

Randy's eyes widened and he attempted to get up once more, wondering where Jake was. _That dragon should be helping! This is so wonk!_ The ninja froze as he heard what sounded like the beginnings of a siren- the 'there's a nuke coming' kind of alarms. Suddenly a cone of green energy came from Danny's mouth, a mixture of the stereotypical ghost sound and a screech sounded across the half of the park they were in. The noise pierced Randy's ears for the half a second he was conscious.

Then all went black.

* * *

Ooooooooooooo cliff hanger!

So? Do you think they lived or died? Succeeded or failed? How injured are they? Why did the Huntsman have a McNet? What is he planning to do? What deal did he make?

Aaaaalll will be revealed in time~

Also, sorry, but I'll be going back to the shorter chapter format after this . There -guaranteed- will be more long chapters, but this is it for now~ sorry!


	23. Author's Note! Please read!

Hey everyone! Sorry it's been such a long time since the last update! Last month I graduated High school then went on a road trip, then after that I got a job at a radio show (squee!) so I've been a bit busy... I've also had a bit of trouble writing the next chapter purely because of how sad Danny is. I am happy to say though that this next chapter is just over halfway done, and hopefully will be finished soon~

I've also begun writing another fanfiction (shame on me). It's a crossover between Avatar: The Last Airbender and Fairy Tail. The basic concept is that the Gaang find themselves in the world of Fairy Tail.

ANYWAYS! I'll put a small preview of the next chapter just to prove I'm still working on it haha xD

* * *

The halfa glanced between Jake and Randy, dread overcoming his entire being. He caused this. If only he had come up with a better plan. If he could have prepared the howl before Randy broke his arm. If he hadn't even met the two then mayb-

Danny's thoughts were broken as Jake groaned, shifting. Danny watched as Jake's eyes opened, a trace of fear in his slitted pupils as they adjusted. He closed them and shook his head slowly, attempting to sit up. "Wha...?"

Danny felt a mixture of relief, fear, and disappointment in himself as he spotted the dragon's bloodied shoulder.

"Morning?" Jake paused as he blinked a couple of times. Suddenly he shot to his feet and ran to the clearing where the unicorns were mere hours ago. He fell to his knees.

 _What?_ Danny followed after Trixie as she dashed over to the boy.

"Oh no... is _that_ what..." Trixie's voice held bewilderment. Jake nodded, falling silent.

To this Danny jumped the last foot and froze. In the field before him a herd of... beautiful... pure white... horses- Danny choked, unable to finish the observation as he once more shut his eyes. All of his strength exited his body and he fell to his knees, the world once more turning black.

* * *

YEAH! It's not much but please bear with me xD

Also, thanks so much for the reviews and favorites, it means so much to me! 3

 **winks to Specter14 and whispers** _"I'm still gonna update don't worry!"_


	24. Recovery?

Danny's senses came back to him slowly. The first thing he felt was a high-pitched ringing in his ears mixed with the sound of a... female voice? His body felt like a brick house built on top of a lake- unstable and heavy. He attempted to move, succeeding. Danny sat up and attempted to open his eyes. The blurry world before him representing that of a mid-morning time frame. A black blob in his direct vision split into multiple colors. "Sam...?" He croaked, then turned away and sealed his eyes shut as a ball of fire jumped into his throat.

"Yeah, this is Sam." The female voice confirmed Danny's suspicions.

The half-ghost attempted to say another word but only ended up coughing, the fire increasing in intensity every time he tried to formulate a sound. He slowly opened his eyes to look at Sam.

"Danny, don't speak." Sam's voice was stern but full of concern. "Me and Trixie found you guys out here lying on the floor so we called for help. Howard's here already and Spud went to get Lao with Tucker. They'll be back soon. We moved you three to this clearing... Hopefully we didn't injure Randy more..." Sam let out a light chuckle. Danny's vision began to recover and he noticed that Sam was holding a hand out to him. "Can you stand?"

Fenton took the hand and stood, stumbling to regain his balance. A massive headache overcame him and he took a second to recover.

"Jake's hurt pretty badly, but Randy-"

Danny then saw his two friends and made his way over. Trixie and Howard were overlooking the two boys.

At the appearance of Danny Trixie spoke up. "Jakey's got a nasty wound on his shoulder... What were you guys doing? This kind of injury is serious- it's more than usual bad guy fighting."

"..." Danny looked over to Howard, a sigh escaping the ginger's body. "Randy's left arm is broken." He gestured to demasked Randy's clearly broken arm, it's direction unnatural.

The halfa glanced between Jake and Randy, dread overcoming his entire being. He caused this. If only he had come up with a better plan. If he could have prepared the howl before Randy broke his arm. If he hadn't even met the two then mayb-

Danny's thoughts were broken as Jake groaned, shifting. Danny watched as Jake's eyes opened, a trace of fear in his slitted pupils as they adjusted. He closed them and shook his head slowly, attempting to sit up. "Wha...?"

Danny felt a mixture of relief, fear, and disappointment in himself as he spotted the dragon's bloodied shoulder.

"Morning?" Jake paused as he blinked a couple of times. Suddenly he shot to his feet and ran to the clearing where the unicorns were mere hours ago. He fell to his knees.

 _What?_ Danny followed after Trixie as she dashed over to the boy.

"Oh no... is _that_ what..." Trixie's voice held bewilderment. Jake nodded, falling silent.

To this Danny jumped the last foot and froze. In the field before him a herd of... beautiful... pure white... hors- Danny choked, unable to finish the observation as he once more shut his eyes. All of his strength exited his body and he fell to his knees, the world once more turning black.

~Time skip, transported to Lao's shop~

 _Failure_. The word circled around Danny's head as he slowly regained consciousness. He reached out to the side. It was soft. The ghost's eyes snapped open and panic overcame him as he realized he was in a bed- one that looked like it belonged to a hospital. His fear grew as he remembered his unusual DNA- surely if the hospital took a blood sample they would catch him?

"Ah- Good morning young ghost child." Danny peered over at the door as an old man walked in. "Welcome to my makeshift hospital. Cozy, no?" Lao chuckled.

Danny willed his heart to stop beating so fast and turned to the elder dragon. He opened his mouth but before he said anything Lao spoke once more.

"Don't talk. I'm not sure what you did, but you managed to mess up your vocals. You shouldn't speak for the next couple of days." Lao shook his head at Danny's unasked question. "At all." He paused, then continued. "Randy and Jake are awake already- it's been a couple of days since Trixie and Samantha found you three in the forest." His eyebrow raised. "According to Jake, you two were helping him protect a herd of unicorns from the Huntsman..."

Danny then remembered that Lao initially told Jake not to invite them. Once more he was going to try and say something but was stopped.

"He had his reasons." The man sighed, "But this is why you two should not have joined Jake." He shook his head and glanced at Danny as he gestured. "If you are wondering where the ninja and my grandson are, they're just outside this room."

The halfa swung his feet over the edge of the bed and attempted to stand, wobbling in his step.

"You should rest!"

Danny ignored the man's advice and took steps forward anyways, his headache dispersing as he walked. He stumbled his way to the door and opened it, blinking at the afternoon light.

Another wave of guilt overcame the halfa as he registered the injuries that his comrades had endured. Jake sported a bandaged upper arm, shoulder, and chest, all of which were being replaced by Fu Dog. He glanced over to Randy and his voice caught in his throat. Randy was wearing a sling, playing _Grave Puncher_ with only one hand, the other half of the remote held by Howard. Danny held back the tears that were forming, refusing to show how much it hurt him to see his two best friends this damaged.

Just then, Randy glanced up from his game and over to Danny, an immensely relieved look overtaking the ninja's face.

"Dude! Danny!" Randy let go of the controller, leaving Howard to fly solo for a bit. "You're awake!" The purple-haired teen made his way over to the halfa.

Danny simply nodded, gesturing to Randy's arm with an implied question.

"Oh, what? This? Pff-" Randy waved a hand, as if the brokenness of his arm was nothing. "Injuries are temporary."

"He's right. Injuries are temporary." Jake glanced over, only to be scolded by Fu Dog.

"Stand still! Geez, fidgeting at every little thing..." The dog grumbled a few times.

Jake rolled his eyes and continued. "The fact that we're alive is far more important don't you think?"

Danny slowly nodded, understanding their words, but still feeling bad about what happened.

"Before you do anything Danny- it wasn't your fault." Randy grabbed Danny's shoulder to get his attention.

Danny opened his mouth.

"No. I ain't allowing this." Randy shook his head firmly. "We would have done the same thing in your position. Who woulda known that the Huntsman would be able to withstand... whatever it is you did."

 _Ghostly Wail..._ Danny wanted to say, but of course couldn't because of his damaged vocal chords. He took a deep breath, and put his hands on Randy's shoulders, nodding his understanding. He nodded to Jake as well, then walked up to Lao. He put his hand forward and imitated a piece of paper and pencil. On his hand he wrote out _I just need some time to myself..._ when Lao nodded, Danny smiled. He somehow knew that the dragon would understand what he wanted to say.

"Danny wants to spend some time in the city." Lao nodded confidently.

The halfa facepalmed. _By. My. Self._ Danny tried to gesture.

"I think he means he wants to be alone Grandpa."

Danny whipped around to Jake and nodded, pointing to him.

"Well, if you're too long you'll miss out on the best level." Randy waved his hand again, going back to sitting next to Howard.

Danny rolled his eyes and changed into his ghost form, flying out of the roof and towards someplace he could be in isolation.

~POV to Vlad~

"You imbecile!" Vlad spat at the dragon-head-wearing idiot before him. "They were unconscious and you just _let them go._ " Vlad hissed his venom, pacing in the great room of his mayor-worthy mansion.

"What could a measly bunch of kids do to us?" The Huntsman once more placed the bag of unicorn horns on the floor, annoyed that he had to carry it everywhere.

"That _measly bunch of kids_ can ruin our entire plan!" Vlad threw his hands up into the air. "Ah- put it them into that chute please."

The Huntsman complied with another grumble of complaint. "How?"

"Thank you." Vlad returned to his pacing soon after the words, knowing that the horns would go straight to his lab without conflict. "How? You're asking _me_ how? Doesn't that dragon boy always get in your way?"

"Yes, but if we ignore the children and get the ingredients, then that's the problem?"

"They could catch onto our plan!"

The Huntsman let out another grunt of disapproval. "I doubt even those who are reading this story know exactly what's going on and they get all the perspectives..."

"Readers?" Vlad looked confused for a second.

"Oh nevermind." The Huntsman shook his head. "There's no way the kids could know about our plans."

"But Daniel is a clever boy..." Vlad returned to plotting, the interruption odd but shrugged off. He found the Huntsman a queer personality, thus, the comment was not too weird. "And based off of what McFist says, this... _ninja_ is sneaky... I just have a bad feeling about this..."

"Even if you have a bad feeling, it won't matter if we collect everything we need before they find out."

Vlad's blue eyes pierced into the Huntsman's glowing red ones. "Make that a 'when' and we may have a chance... _May_."

* * *

Woo! I'm back! Sorry for such a long wait for this chapter! Hopefully this is good enough to make up for the long wait... ^^'

I'm back in action now, so hopefully the timeframes will get shorter between chapters.

Also~ Does anyone have a guess for what the baddies are planning?

That 4th wall break tho ;3


	25. Regroup

Yay for taking forever!

But really, sorry about that guys, I was a lot busier than expected... School's started up for me again, so I'm not sure how fast/slow I'll be T.T

Regardless- ENJOY!

* * *

~POV back to Danny 3~

Danny took a deep breath and calmed himself down. Even if his team said it wasn't his fault, he still felt responsible. The halfa was the planner on the team, and when a plan failed, the two paid the price. The teen took another deep breath and landed, changing into his human form. Danny had decided that he wouldn't allow his teammates to get hurt again. He walked into the library he had landed at, instantly looking around it for anything that might be useful. It was obvious that the Huntsman, McFist, and Vlad were planning something. But the question was what.

The ghost glanced around and took one of the several open seats in the room. He looked up and down the table before he reached for the center of the desk- which conveniently displayed a stack of lined paper and a cup of disposable pencils. _Well... It's not stealing if it's displayed, right...?_ Danny silently chuckled at his comment, then tapped the page with his pencil as he delved into his thoughts.

At this point in time he had memorized everything that has been targeted and who was involved. All that was left was connecting it... Danny instinctively chewed on the eraser as he thought.

"Chewing on that eraser is bad for your teeth."

Danny blinked and took the utensil out of his mouth, looking up at who had approached him.

The young lady looked like she was in her mid-teenage years, had fair skin, beautiful just-past-shoulder-length golden blonde hair, and mesmerizing black eyes. She sat on the table, then changed to laying on it, in order to be able to close Danny's gaping mouth and plausible question.

"Ah ah ah, that would ruin the fun, wouldn't it?" Her voice was silky and smooth, her laugh sounded like chimes. "Farewell." She smirked and pulled back her hand gracefully, walking off with obvious confidence.

Danny blinked, not sure what to make of the encounter. She was obviously a 10, and completely out of his league, but she had come up to him specifically to tell him to stop chewing on his pencil...? He shook his head. A beautiful girl just talked to him. _To him_. He sat for a second, daydreaming about her commanding yet elegant eyes.

"Why would he be here?" Danny was kicked out of his image as he heard a familiar, whiny voice filter through the area.

"Think about it. Danny's proba-" Jake stopped his comment and pointed directly at the halfa. "There he is."

Danny stood, opening his mouth, then remembering his temporary muteness, and closing it, annoyed at this constant opening/closing thing.

"You know, sometimes I hate your intuition." Randy commented with a monotone voice. The purple-haired teen strode over and sat across from the ghost, noticing the paper. "Plotting?"

"Can we join you?" Jake sat next to Danny.

Danny averted his eyes, but nodded anyways. He knew that connecting this stuff would need more than one brain.

"Danny, it's not your fault that we're hurt." Randy sighed and grabbed a pencil, offering one to Jake as well, who took it.

Danny kept his gaze averted and pointed to the paper, gesturing to everything he had written down.

"Wow, you had all of this memorized?" Jake sounded somewhat impressed.

Another nod. Danny had written down the pixie event, the T-Rex, and the unicorn incident in relatively striking detail.

"But you're missing the pig." Randy snatched the piece of paper and wrote about McFist with a pig.

"Really? What does the pig have anything to do with anything?"

"McFist wouldn't go around with a pig."

"What if it was a pet?"

"Oh please, if you've seen his idiotic kid Bash you'd know that the kid hates all animals."

"What about McFist's lackey?"

"Lackey? You mean the robots?"

"No..." Jake paused, then continued with a sarcastic and dumbfounded tone as Randy gave him a confused look. "Did you not know that McFist industries has a brilliant scientist that does all the work behind the scenes?"

"What?"

"You mean, you've _never_ seen that brown-haired glasses-wearing man in a lab coat stand next to him at _everything_ he goes to?"

Randy shook his head. "But what does that have to do with a behind-the-scenes mad scientist?"

"It's pretty obvious, just trust me."

Danny facepalmed, then wrote on the paper because he felt the need to intervene. " _Regardless, a_ pig _is an odd pet altogether, so Jake, let's let Randy have this one."_

"Fine." Jake pouted for a second. He then looked to the piece of paper. "I feel like we're missing a few things though... I mean, the only connection between these events is that they all have to do with some kind of magical or mechanical something-or-other. So, that crosses off what McFist and the Huntsman have been doing... But what has Vlad been up to?"

Danny raised an eyebrow to Jake with a smug 'I told ya so' look on his face.

"I see your face there Danny." Jake commented in a monotone. "Those 'what if' questions may come into play here."

"But it probably isn't as severe as you were saying Danny." Randy cut in. "I mean, if they were out to destroy the world, they would have just started causing chaos."

" _Not if they have a plan."_ Danny wrote on the page and tapped the sentence for emphasis.

"Yeah, but the only problem is that McFist is impatient and wouldn't agree to a plan."

"Plus, the Huntsclan is a lone wolf. They don't like working with anyone else for long periods of time."

Danny shrugged and stood up, folding the paper neatly and placing it in his pocket, returning the pencil to the cup it came from. He knew he was onto something, but until he could get all the information he needed he would have to leave it at that.

~Sam's POV 3 ~

Samantha Manson was unsure of how she felt. The fact that each member of the secret trio was injured in some grave manner, both physically and mentally, saddened her. Sam knew that it wasn't any of their faults, but... In a twisted kind of way, she wished that it was so she could blame them. As it stood though, no one was to blame, and the goth was at a loss for what to do. She couldn't just give a sarcastic response and all would be fine.

The goth sighed.

"Hey Sam, you okay?" Sam glanced up from her clenched fists to spot Tucker.

"Yeah, I'm just worried for Danny and them."

Tucker pulled a chair up to the bean bag she sat in. The two were currently trying to do 'homework' in the local library. Sam wanted to be in the Skulk and Lurk, but Tucker refused on the basis of his attempt to go goth went wrong.

Tucker shook his head. "Well, we couldn't have done anything. We didn't even know that Danny was going to go with Jake."

"That's another thing..." A flash of worry shined in her purple eyes. "Danny hasn't been telling us anything as of late. I worried.."

"Worried that- what? He'd abandon us?" Tucker scoffed when Sam nodded. "Danny is the most loyal guy. He wouldn't just abandon those he considers friends that easily."

"I know that but..." Sam paused, then continued. "When he has to make the choice... Will he choose us... Or Jake and Randy?"

"You know that Danny wouldn't get into that kind of situation, right?"

Sam just raised an eyebrow.

"...often." Tuck shook his head. "I'm sure he would choose both us and Jake and Randy. He wouldn't abandon either of us."

Sam was about to retaliate again, but found that it would be pointless to do so. She glanced up, spotting a familiar outfit. "Danny!"

The halfa paused, blinked, and turned, grinning as he saw Tucker and Sam. Then he looked a bit ashamed, rubbing the back of neck like he usually did when he was stressed out.

Tucker stood and ushered Danny to the empty seat next to Sam (who had saved it out of habit.

"Danny..." Sam didn't know where to begin, but the teen held out his hand- another gesture common among the friends.

Even if Danny didn't say anything, Tuck and Sam understood that he was telling them to stop worrying. That he was over it now.

Sam shook her head. "Danny, this was a _big_ deal. You can't just shrug it off in one evening."

Danny deflated at that a little bit.

"But that doesn't mean that we can't celebrate you getting better." Tuck pointed out positively and grinned. "You know, I don't feel like going to school tomorrow. The weather's warm enough."


	26. Beached

Hey all! It's been a long, _long_ time since I last updated. Since the last update, Christmas passed, the new year began, and this story reached its third year anniversary! I really want to thank you all for being with me (especially those who were there from the beginning on quotev). I've grown so attached to these versions of Danny, Randy, and Jake... This world and storyline? It wouldn't exist if it weren't for you readers. I wasn't sure about uploading the story to , but all of your support really inspired me to keep my story on both sites.

I just... I can't thank you enough.

Well, to celebrate, I've written two chapters for this update! I do have a warning for these chapters though. I don't want to spoil anything, but it's possible that the K+ rating on Fanfiction might not work anymore. I'm planning on keeping the rating as K+, but to those who aren't prepared, please know that there's going to be a plot twist that may not be okay for some of you. This chapter is likely fine, so if you want to read this then decide, that's totally fine. Just thought I'd warn you beforehand. But, without further ado, a double update!

* * *

Danny took a deep breath, glad that the crew decided against going to school this fine Friday morning. Despite what Lao said, Danny was feeling a lot better today. He even managed to say something this morning without it hurting. He knew that he had a bit more healing, but it was definitely close to finished. Even Lao was fascinated by how quickly Danny recovered.

But the recovery wasn't just for Danny, Randy seemed to be getting better rather quick. Jake commented on how the more often someone breaks something the faster it recovers, so he made a joke about Randy breaking his arm all the time. To both of the boy's horror and surprise it turns out that Randy breaks his arms (and legs, and ribs, an- basically his entire body) a lot more often than they thought. Danny guessed that's why he was so sturdy now.

Regardless, the trio and their friends were now taking the day off (Minus Jazz- she refused to skip school). It was one of those rare fall days that felt like a summer afternoon. It was nice to have a day off... No matter how mad Lancer and the other teachers would be. But hey, that's the life of a superhero. They just didn't understand what a tough life the three lived. Well, the trio plus their five friends.

"I'm still surprised how fast you can recover..." Sam commented to Randy, who no longer wore a cast, just a sling.

When Randy opened his mouth to reply, Howard did it for him. "Aw, Randy breaks his body all the time and always recovers _super_ fast. I bet he'll be healed by Wednesday."

"Should we take Monday and Tuesday off too then?" Tucker had a somewhat mischievous smirk on his face as he held his PDA- which proudly displayed the date and Danny's calendar.

Yes, Danny did entrust Tuck with his schedule again. What could the halfa say? The techie was good at keeping track of time. Most of the time.

"But... Skipping school is bad for your... your... brain health!" Spud raised an index finger and nodded when he spoke the 'wisdom'.

"Plus, we don't want the teachers to be _more_ mad at us than they already are." Trixie pointed out.

"Okay fine then... I'll just make some time for Danny to have the best... _Three_ day... weekend ever..." Tucker tapped away on his PDA, then looked up. "But, uh, what do you all want to do today?"

Jake glanced to the spotless sky. "We could... go to the lake?"

"There's a lake near here?"

"Yeah, it' not that far away actually." Randy replied in Jake's place matter-of-factly. "But we should be wary... McFist hid a Shark-Dermanator in the bottom of it."

"A what?" Sam asked.

"Basically it's a shark with REALLY dry skin."

"It's kind of gross honestly." Howard nodded. "Last time we came in contact with it, it almost destroyed the town because of how mad it was that it had dry skin."

"Ew." Tucker shivered.

"Sounds like fun to me!" Jake grinned and tugged Danny and Randy along. After a moment, the other friends followed with a group-wide shrug.

~Woo trip to the lake and some swimsuit changes!~

"Woooowhee!" Randy whistled, his non-slinged arm brought to his brow to shield the sun. "You know, Sam's not bad in a swimsuit." He nudged Danny with an eyebrow raise. His swimsuit was mainly white, but a deep purple floral pattern was obvious.

The halfa rolled his eyes, clearly not impressed with the norrisvillian's comment. He was covering his torso with his arms, feeling slightly self-conscious at the fact that his suit matched his Phantom colors. It made him look like a fanboy.

Jake smiled at the glittering water. "You know, I'm not a huge fan of water, but this lake isn't too bad!" Jake wore a green swimsuit and a black swim shirt, likely to hide his injury. After all, the kiddos didn't want to draw more attention than they already were.

"Of course it's great, It's owned by McFist!" Howard proudly crossed his arms over his... generous midsection, nodding. He matched Randy's colors, though his suit had flames instead of the floral pattern.

"I'm surprised it's not called the McLake." Sam commented as she walked closer to the boys, putting a hand on the hip of her black one-piece.

"Guys! The water's not as cold as I first thought!" Spud grinned as he splashed around in the water... it looked like the teen hadn't changed at all and was just wading around in his daily outfit.

"Spud!" Trixie clicked her tongue and retrieved the beanie kid, pulling him out of the water and ushering him to change.

"Are you going to swim with us Trixie?" Tucker called to her as she exited the water, keeping his distance despite wearing a diving suit of some kind.

"Nah man, I'll just watch." Trixie pulled Spud farther away. "Watch and keep this kid from drowning!"

"Aw but drowning's fun Trixie! I've done it before and I'm fine!"

Jake shook his head at his friends. "I'm not going to dive in but I'll still sit in the shallows or something." He made his way to the shore, doing just that.

"CANNONBALL!" Randy hollered and dashed, diving straight into the lake with a large splash, doing the aforementioned move despite his sling.

"Wait- shouldn't he... Avoid swimming like that?" Tucker pushed up his glasses in worry.

"Chill broski, he'll be fine." Howard nudged the nerd and followed his buddy's lead. "OH YEAH!"

Danny smiled, taking a deep breath as the group around him began to get more chaotic. Even if the space wasn't a resort with a hot tub, he felt that the relaxation was just what everyone needed. Tensions were high in the group... Especially on Danny's side. Or at least, it seemed to be like Team Phantom was worrying the most out of all of them. Danny nodded, hoping that he was the most worried out of all of them. Don't get him wrong, the halfa believed that a good dose of worry was essential to everyone. But... Even if Danny didn't perform as well as the other two, he at least wanted to take away some emotional strain. In all honesty he was used to the enhanced stress levels by now. It would be too much effort to make the others learn how to properly worry.

~POV to Randy~

"Danny! The water's nice!" Randy shouted and waved to the ghost kid.

Danny nodded and waved back to Randy.

The purple-haired teen rolled his eyes in response. "I meant... Come join us!" He grinned as he shouted the suggestion louder than the first passive invitation. "I wanna show you something!"

Randy could smell Danny's hesitation as the halfa looked around in both confusion and worry. To Randy's relief, the teen managed to get over his nerves and, albeit slowly, tiptoed into the water. The ninja waited patiently as Danny waved to Jake and waded in farther, finally making it to the section of the water that forced him to swim.

"Okay, so, you know about the Shark-Derminator right?"

Rolled eyes.

"Okay, okay, that's bruce..." Randy raised a questioning eyebrow. "Do you want to see it?"

Danny's eyes widened. "What?" He managed to hoarsely whisper.

Randy giggled and took off the sling he had been wearing. It was already sopping wet... It held no power over helping his arm out. He tossed it towards Jake without a second thought. "Catch!"

"Hey!" Jake shouted in complaint as he received the soaked mess of material.

Danny glanced between his two friends, worry evident.

"Aw, chill bro, it'll be fine!" Randy swam over and patted the ghost on the back. "How long can you hold your breath for?"

"I can hold mine for thirty seconds!" Howard boasted, to which Randy rolled his eyes again.

The purple-haired teen turned to his biffer for a second. "Howard, that isn't something to boast! Most people can hold their breath for about one minute!" He then turned back to Danny. "I can hold mine for one and a half minutes!"

Danny smiled. "30 minutes."

"What!" Randy's turn to widen his eyes.

The halfa rolled his eyes and turned ghost.

"Tricky..." Randy turned to Howard and waggled his finger up and down. "Tricky this one is."

"But... I can run out of breath." Danny's soft voice caught Randy's attention again.

"That's weird though..." Howard paused to remember to kick and keep afloat. "You're dead... So drowning wouldn't be a thing... But you're also technically not dead...?" Howard mumbled a few more times in thought.

"Eh, it doesn't really matter, right?" Randy chuckled and took a deep breath, shoving his face under water.

Randy's eyes narrowed as he tried to focus in on the silhouette of the Shark-Derminator, popping his head back out in victory as he reported where it was.

~Jake's POV~

"I wish I knew how to swim well..." Jake grumbled as he spun the sling around and around in circles. He watched his friends dive underwater. "I wanna see the shark."

"Come back when you get better then." Jake glanced up from his pouting fit to spot Sam approach and sit next to him.

"Oh, I'm gonna do that, don't worry." Jake turned back to the lake and kicked the incoming mini-wave. "I should be better soon. Even if I'm not, I'll be able to do things regularly, unlike those two." He nodded his head to where the duo disappeared.

Sam stayed silent as she wrapped her arms around her legs, peering into the shallows with concern.

"Yo, what's u-"

"ThanksfortakingcareofDanny!" Sam practically shouted. Thankfully Tuck, Trixie, and Spud were too busy trying to run from the waves to hear her.

"What?"

Sam sighed. "Danny has a hard time trusting others, and I appreciate you being his friend."

"Where'd this come from?" Jake shrugged his question, leaning back a bit so he could look at the sky.

"Well..." Sam poked the sand and drew something unknown. "He's really worried about you two... And... The only other people he worries like that for are me, Tuck, and Jazz..." Jake glanced over and froze, caught by her unusual purple eyes. "You and Randy... I wasn't sure at first that you two should be his friends. I mean... You are a _dragon_." Sam shrugged. "Only a couple of months ago I had no idea that there was a magical world."

Jake shrugged. "That means we're going a good job."

The goth gave Jake a wry half-smile. "Regardless, I wasn't willing to admit that a dragon and a ninja existed in this world." She shivered at a sudden gust of winter air. "Danny-" She shook her head. "...All of us were mad about you revealing Danny's secret, but in the end... You three became best friends and, honestly, became super powerful protectors of this region... So, thanks. Thank you for being Danny's friend, and thank you for giving Danny another reason to keep being a superhero."

 _Keep?_ Jake shook the thought out of his head before he went off track. He shouldn't put words into the halfa's mind. "You shouldn't thank me." He nodded to the water as Danny, Randy, and Howard resurfaced. "Thank Danny for keeping the group together. Really, we wouldn't be able to do any of this without his sharp mind." Jake smiled and waved back to the trio in the water.

Sam nodded, standing up and shuffling over to Trixie, Spud, and Tucker mumbling a "I need a coat. It's too cold out for swimming..."

~Jazz's POV~

Jasmine Fenton huffed, staring out of the window and not paying attention in class for once. She couldn't believe that her brother actually skipped out on school. He knew how important education was for his future! She shook her head, glancing up to the clock.

"See you all tomorrow!"

The room exploded into movement. Jazz sighed and slowly put her books into her bag, waving to a few friends. She didn't feel like talking to anyone today. The mature teen just wanted to get home.

Jazz stood and tossed her bag over her shoulder, the weight setting her off balance for a second. She gave a wave to the teacher and began walking out of school, nodding her head in confirmation of her previous guess: everyone had gone to the busses already. Jazz didn't take the bus that often. She prefered to walk. The girl took a deep breath and straightened, starting her trek home.

Almost instantly Jazz's mind began to wander to thoughts of Danny. She just simply wanted her brother to be safe and sou-

"MMPH!"

Jazz lurched backwards as her mouth was covered and she was pulled.

"The bag!"

Sarcastic, "yeah, yeah."

Darkness took over Jazz's vision.

Whisper-shout, "and-"

A click of the tongue. "Don't worry."

"THUMP"

The world went silent.


	27. Missing Fenton

~Vlad POV~

"Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Fenton. Jazz won a special trip to Loguetown." 'Mr. Lancer' spoke to the parents of Jasmine Fenton over the phone. "She's going to help a special case get over his brother's death."

"Oh, will she be safe?" Maddie Fenton asked in a worried voice.

"I assure you she's fine. She should be back in a couple of weeks."

"Strange she didn't tell me about it..."

"She must have wanted it to be a surprise."

"But Jazz-"

"I'm sorry Mrs. Fenton, I have a student waiting for me. You'll see her soon."

Vlad hung up the phone, lacing his fingers together and placing his chin on them. Plasmius had overshadowed Mr. Lancer to clean up the _mess_ that McFist and Viceroy made. It wasn't his idea to kidnap the sister of Daniel, and it sure as hell wasn't in his or the Sorcerer's plans. Vlad exited from the teacher's body, phasing through the wall and into a bathroom stall, changing to his human form.

He flushed the toilet and walked out of the restroom, giving a good glare to all the students in the hall. Of course, Vlad smiled as well, but it was obvious that the man was upset. Masters could only hope that the Huntsman had succeeded in his next mission. Out of the group of minions, Huntsman was far more capable than McFist and Viceroy. Even if the scientist was smart, he basically did whatever McFist said, dubbing him as useless. Especially after the kidnapping of Jasmine Fenton. There was no reason for that!

Vlad took a deep breath to calm himself down. As one of the co-mayors it was his job to keep a positive face in public. Maybe he'd just bake some confectionaries from the left over ingredients. His cat, Maddie, seemed to love his cooking. Maybe it would make the supervillain happier.

~Jake's POV~

Jake's heart raced as Danny impatiently tapped his fingers against the table, obviously contemplating the information they just recieved at super speed; working through all of the possible scenarios.

Randy shot a question from his corner chair position once more. "Can you repeat that?"

Gramps sighed. "Huntsman captured 10 pixies."

Jake took a deep breath and leaned forward a bit. "But Gramps... weren't you and Fu the ones guarding the pixies' village?"

"Yes..." Lao nodded solemnly. "He caught us off guard."

"You? Off guard?" Jake raised an eyebrow, his cool demeanor failing a bit as a small tremble was evident in his hands. He brought his hands forward, interlacing the fingers in an attempt to keep the tremble from being obvious. "I-" Jake took a deep breath. "I don't believe you."

Gramps just shut his eyes, sighing in defeat and turning to leave the back room of his shop; a single glance to the trio was all they got.

A moment passed in the now silent room before Danny burst into action, pacing the area in quick, sharp movements. His voice was nearly finished healing, so talking had been an activity the ghost boy had been participating all morning. At this moment though he seemed overly concerned.

"Danny, I'm sure it's fine..." Jake gulped, speaking the words to help himself more than his friends.

"HOW CAN IT BE-" Danny whipped around and coughed, shaking his head and taking deep breaths. "How can it be fine?" The second time he spoke it was far softer. The teen returned to his pacing shortly after the outburst.

The room fell silent once more, the previous day's frolic in the lake forgotten and unimportant. Jake placed his forehead on his hands, his eyes slammed shut as he tried to think of a way to get out of this scenario. It was bad enough that Huntsman succeeded in getting the unicorn horns, but now with the pixies... Plus the fact that Gramps and Fu Dog were unable to protect the village... It was all too much for him to take.

Jake opened his mouth, only to be cut off by Danny. The dragon's vision snapped open and locked onto the halfa.

"I'm going to go think about this." Danny changed into his ghost form, his green eyes clearly clouded with thoughts, worries, possibilities, and stress.

"Okay, but Danny-" Randy reached forward, stopping as Danny flew through the wall. "... Don't think _too_ much about it..." The ninja faded off his sentence at the dissapearance.

A moment passed.

"This is so... WONK!" On the last word Randy slammed his non-slinged arm onto the table, his anger and disappointment clear. He jerked his hand from the table, equally as quickly standing. "I'm going to go-" He took a breath and got rid of his angered voice. "...play games with Howard." The usual joy that came with this sentence was replaced by a bitter tone.

Jake could do nothing as his teammates- his friends- his allies exited the room one by one. Silence filled the room once more after Randy slammed the door behind him. Jake grit his teeth again, attempting to keep his hands from trembling in anger and fear.

"Yo, Jakey...?" Trixie carefully opened up the door to the room.

"Not now Trix." Jake shot to his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets as he pushed past his best friends and out of the store. He had to cool off. He couldn't harbor all of these emotions- Jake was supposed to be the fun-loving guy who encourages the others to follow and trust each other. Despite what he said to Sam yesterday, he couldn't help but feel responsible- as if _he_ was the leader of the trio. Jake knew that Randy and Danny also felt the same way he did. None of them had established a 'leader' persay, but rather, they were _all_ leaders. The dragon shook his head, grabbing his skateboard on his way out. Jake would return to normal. But first he had to let off some steam.

~Jazz POV~

Jasmine remained deathly quiet- pretending to have fainted from the sudden experience of being kidnapped. Somehow the teen had managed to fool the two adults, surprising herself with her abilities a bit. She wasn't the best actress around. Unfortunately, Jazz wasn't entirely certain who her assailants were, but she had suspicions that it was McFist. She had watched enough news to recognize the voice of the multi-billionaire owner of a monopoly. But she also wasn't certain because she knew that people sounded different in person than on TV.

"Are we there yet?" Voice 1 -McFist according to Jazz- whinned. Jazz held back a flinch at the movement he was causing to the vehicle, the whole car swaying under his weight.

"Not yet." An exasperated Voice 2 responded (she wasn't exactly sure who this was quite yet, hence her hesitation about McFist).

She heard a harumph, then silence for about a minute.

"Are we there yet?"

She could practically hear the eyeroll, "Yes."

"Really!"

Jazz's body jerked to the side, her eyes slamming shut as she bit into her lip to prevent herself from complaining about her sure-to-be bruise from the impact.

Fury was evident, "You lied to me!"

Voice 2 sighed. Jazz leaned forward as the car began to stop. "No I didn't."

McFist paused for a moment, Jazz frowning at the, albeit slower, shift of balance in the car. "Oh, you're right." McFist's voice was flatlined.

"Mmm. Of course I'm right."

The mechanical click signified to Jazz that there was some kind of security system- one that required a key to unlock it. She shimmied her tied hands slowly to her pockets, silently sighing in relief at the confirmation of the fenton phone in her pocket. Thankfully her capturers had yet to check her belongings. She brought her hands back to her lap as she felt the vehicle slow down and the sound of a garage door opening. She thought nothing of it for a moment, but after said moment her brows furrowed. What garage door could take that long to open?

A click sounded and the vehicle began to move again, the almost-silent mechanical whurr of the garage now registering for Jazz's ears. It had to be a lair of some kind. No normal person would have such a garage. Nor such a silent garage door opener. Seriously- only people who washed their car every other day cared enough to keep their garage from squeaking.

Instinctively Jazz slammed her eyes shut at the sound of the back door being clicked open. Even with the bag over her head she didn't know if they could see her face or not... Saying the crazy things that her parents had invented, Jazz wouldn't be surprised if a one-way-mirror-bag-thing existed. The teen resisted the urge to respond to the sound of robots walking up to the car- maybe in curiosity, maybe by orders, she wasn't sure.

"Take her to the... Uh, what was it called?" The second half was noticeably quieter than the first half.

"The Hol-"

"TO THE HOLDING CELL!"

She again assumed that it was McFist who shouted the line, but the novelty of finding out her captor didn't make jazz feel any better knowing that she was going to be held somewhere unknown. Possibly for days, hours, minutes, years, or however long they wanted to keep her. She huffed as she was picked up by the ape, being carried bridal style into the unknown.

* * *

Exciting, huh? :D

Okay, so one last thing before I depart with y'all. I'm considering making a spin-off series where it's literally just the trio hanging out. I realized that there isn't much of team bonding in this fanfic because they just have to get along and get over it due to their enemies, but I do want to show that the trio are friends. So, how many of you would be interested in reading something like that? I was also thinking maybe I'd put some one-shot ideas for AU's and other fanfics for these shows that I likely won't write and/or take a while before getting to them.

Also, I have an idea for what to do for the sequel of this story! I know, I know. You're saying: "But... You haven't finished this one yet!"

And yeah, I get that. However, having a sequel would be fun to contemplate. The rest of this story is planned out (about 11 chapters left guys!) and I'm having so much fun with these three I don't want to part with them... Does that make any sense? Well, regardless... I wish you all a fantastical day and wonderful surprises!

I donno when I'll update next, but I'll try to do better than 5 months [winks]. I already have an idea for the specifics of the next chapter, so yeah! Maybe y'all'll get a third chapter this month! Who knows~

(btw if u can guess what Loguetown is from i'll give you a cookie... Hint: it's an anime that I've sunk way too many hours into but still adore)


	28. Jokes and Determination

Okay so this might get a bit confusing, but I'm going to be switching perspectives every third of this chapter- each perspective starts and ends at relatively the same time. Also, it's gonna be a longer chapter!

Let's do this!

(better than 5 months amiright?)

* * *

~Randy's POV~

Randy kicked the bright blue waves of the ocean, sitting on an ever-moving dock and watching a pair of samurai battle it out across the mass of water. Okay, well, the ocean might not have been an ocean, but rather a salt-water lake, but scenery technicalities didn't matter much in the nomicon.

"Nomicon, why are we losing so much all of the sudden?"

Randy blinked as the samurai suddenly stopped their fight, bowed, turned to a dragon, bowed once more, then all three turned to face some kind of boar monster. The teen sighed and kicked another wave, shouting in protest as a fish suddenly flew into his face.

"Hey!" Randy scrambled a bit, frantically pushing the fish away. As soon as his vision cleared, he fumed. "It's not that funny!" The samurai, dragon, and boar (who were all laughing at him) sharply turned and started their battle again.

Randy shot to his feet, pointing a finger into the sky accusingly. "I know you're trying to cheer me up, but if you can't follow up a fish with a pun, I'll just continue into my depths of sadness!"

" _Unicorns, Pixies, and a cake walk into a town-"_

Randy immediately shouted, frantically dissipating the assumingly terrible joke. "Nomicon, really." He huffed, slamming back into his sitting position, crossing his arms to the best of his abilities. He wasn't wearing his cast anymore, but he still had a wrist brace so it was awkward to perform some sarcastic moves.

The samurai across the lake/ocean/water caught Randy's attention. It frowned in a 'okay, fine. If that's how it is...' kind of way.

"What's-" The world collapsed in on itself, shifting from its mass of colors to white, then to black, and Randy's eyes shot open. "Thanks Nomicon! I feel _so_ much better!" Randy shook his fist at the now-closed book.

"It's just a book Cunningham."

A look of surprise crossed Randy's face and he turned to Howard. "Wha-"

"Your parents let me in." Howard casually shrugged and reached to turn on the game console, snickering slightly.

"What's that snicker about?"

"Oh, nothing."

Another snicker.

"Okay, what did you do Howard?" Randy threatened, his blue eyes narrowing in suspicion as he stood up slowly.

" _Nothing_."

Okay, now Randy knew something was up. The teen cautiously walked to the bathroom after a moment's pause. A moment later, "HOWARD!" Randy bolted out of the room, shouting every possible enemy mob he knew from _Grave Puncher 4! Now with more highly-requested graves!_

Howard had drawn all over Randy's face while he was shloomped. How rude!

The biffer no longer denied his sin, his giggling turning into full-blown snort laughter.

"Howard! I'm gonna kill you!" Randy shouted, but after some chasing his angry expression formed into a grin. His tone changed to one of glee. "You'll pay for what you did! You jerk!" He cackled, tackling the other boy to the ground with little to no effort.

"Hey! Not fair! You can't use your strength on me!"

"Why not?" The mischievous question slipped into his joke.

"You're The Ninja! I'm just a mortal!" Howard slammed his hand on the ground, obviously overplaying it a bit; his smile being the real evidence against his words.

"Oh? Maybe a _mortal_ shouldn't draw on The Ninja's face? Huh?" Randy ruffled Howard's ginger hair.

"Eh-"

"No roughhousing!" The two boys immediately stopped their actions, even if their giggling hadn't ceased. "Howard! Randy's hurt!"

"Yeah, yeah, okay, we'll stop Mrs. Cunningham!" Howard shouted back, looking up to Randy expectantly.

Randy sighed and stepped off of Howard.

"Feeling better Cunningham?"

The ninja blinked, thinking for a moment. "You know what? Yeah, I am feeling better."

"Good, because without you what would happen to Norrisville?"

"It'd probably be taken over by stank'd kids." Randy lightly punched Howard in the arm, who immediately went to rub it as if Randy had broken his shoulder.

"Exactly. So, this job is your job... Well, yours, Danny's, and Jake's." There Howard went again, speaking wisdom Randy didn't know existed.

"... What if we fail again?"

"You won't."

"But-"

Howard gave Randy a knowing look. "You won't because you've already failed enough."

~POV to Jake~

Jake soared through the skies, basically just flying in loops. He had seen Danny doing the same, but the dragon had carefully avoided the ghost boy. He knew that everyone wanted their own space for now. Jake frowned, stopping his flight for a moment. He floated down to the rooftops, shifting into his human form before sitting down and unzipping his coat, lifting his shirt off on his shoulders. He was pretty confident that no one would come the the roof of this building, so he felt no shame in it.

Jake took a sharp breath and removed the bandages on his shoulder. It was still there. Jake let out a huge sigh and let his hands fall to the floor. He didn't even care that his knuckles complained about the sudden impact. The dragon looked to the sky, "why?"

"Well, it was pretty nasty."

Jake leapt several feet in the air, frantically falling into a karate stance he wasn't sure worked or not.

Spud raised his hands in a clear defeat.

Jake's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "How...?"

"Jakey, we're your best friends, how could we _not_ know where you are?" For a moment Jake thought the sass was coming from Spud, but a quick second glance showed that Trixie had stepped out from behind the beanie kid. "Besides, you're not the stealthiest lasagna out there."

Jake shook his head at the joke, collapsing back onto the roof in disappointment, taking up the classic criss-cross-applesauce pose. "But... Danny and Randy didn't get a scar."

Trixie clicked her tongue and walked over, tossing Jake's previously abandoned skateboard nearby. "Now you're just complainin' man." She sat next to Jake, Spud close behind.

"Complaining?" Jake gestured to the good 2 inches by 7 inches of scar on his shoulder. Half of its length was on the front, the other half on his back.

Trixie laughed a slight bit. "Well, at least your buddy didn't give it to you."

Jake rolled his eyes. Randy's shuriken had caused the scar in the battle with the Huntsman. He knew that Trixie was using sarcasm, but surprise surprise, sarcasm sometimes didn't help with emotional problems. Jake's expression changed as the memories of the fight with the Huntsman flooded back. Jake flopped onto his back, not minding the cold cement of the roof on his skin. He sighed. "Trix, Spud, I wasn't able to stop the Huntsman from taking the Unicorn's horns. Gramps and Fu weren't able to stop him from taking the pixies."

"So?"

"So?!" Jake whipped up and faced Spud.

"It's not like it's the end of the world right?" The male teen shrugged. "The pixies coulda gotten away."

"Spud's right Jake! What if they got away?"

"I doubt it." Jake sighed again and flopped back to the sky. A small smile took over his features. "At least the scar is pretty rad." Always the jokester.

"Heh, yeah." Trixie nodded, laying down next to Jake's right; Spud on his left.

Silence passed between the friends before Spud spoke up again.

"But you know, I haven't heard about tiny people on the news yet."

It was an off-comment. Probably something that didn't mean much to either Trixie and Spud. But to Jake, something clicked.

"No, there hasn't been." Jake slowly sat up, as if he had discovered something huge. "That means... Maybe there _is_ still hope!" The dragon's face lit up.

Trixie clapped Jake's back, much to his chagrin. "There ya go! That's the Jakey we know."

Jake nodded absent-mindedly, his mind already beginning to work. If he didn't know better, he felt like Danny did every other day. Maybe that's how the ghost was good at keeping himself in line and not bursting out. Well, at least, not as much as he should with all the stress he deals with.

"Maybe... Maybe they need the pixies for something..." Jake muttered, only to have his thoughts knocked out of him at a slap on the back from Spud. The kid didn't know how to control his own strength sometimes.

"Yeah maybe!" Spud's goofy grin distracted Jake from continuing his line of thought.

Jake broke out laughing, surprising both Trixie and Spud in the process.

Spud was looking at him like he was an alien. Which, you know, dragons... Aliens... Same difference right? "What's so funny? Do I have something on my face?" Spud then went to rub his face to see if anything was wrong.

Jake could only cackle more, flopping onto his side.

"Yo, you okay bud?" Trixie leaned down, searching his eyes for some tell-tale sign of crazy.

"Yeah, Yeah-" Jake took a breath, wiping the tears from his eyes as he sat back up. "You know, having friends like you two is awesome."

"We couldn't ask for a better friend either Jakester." Trixie's eyebrows moved in the their usual position: one above the other with a mischievous smirk. "Having a _dragon_ for a friend is super awesome too."

"Really though... Do I have something on my face?" Spud panicked.

Jake shook his head slowly and stood up, picking up his shirt. "Nah Spud, you look great."

Trixie's face formed disgust. "Great? Maybe after a change of clothes."

Jake slowly shook his head, pulling his shirt on and taking a deep breath of the air. Maybe having a scar wouldn't be _too_ bad. Especially since it looked kind of cool. "You know what?" Jake turned to Spud and Trixie, his hands on his hips as he regained his confidence. "I should thank Randy. Then, after that, we'll go kick some Huntsclan tail!" He grinned.

~Danny's POV~

The halfa huffed some breaths, a flash of red catching his eye for a moment. Danny paused his flight and made awkward eye contact with Jake before the dragon flew off in a different direction. For a moment the ghost boy paused, something looked off about his shoulder... Was he still hurt? Danny sighed, shaking his head. "It's my fault." He muttered to himself, the old habit kicking in as he processed the words that Lao had spoken.

A pixie village... 10? Wasn't 10 a bit too specific of a number? Something like 18, 21, 12, or even 3 would be more likely for a quick grab.

Danny's thoughts broke off as he realized what he was doing. He was trying to think things through again. The halfa took another large breath and floated down, landing and changing into Fenton. There was nothing wrong with thinking, but he knew that he often over thought things that upset him.

"Vi scias, ke ne estis tre sekreta. [You know, that wasn't very stealthy.]"

Danny rolled his eyes and faced Sam and Tuck, two friends he hadn't spoken to in what feels like forever. "Sam you know I can't speak Esperanto right?"

"But you can understand it!" The 'understand' was emphasized as Tucker pointed in a meaningful manner. "That's what matters!"

"Well yeah, I had to learn _some_ stuff because of Wulf." Danny smiled lightly, rubbing the back of his neck. Again, a habit he had lost until recently.

Sam walked closer and grabbed his arm, pulling it away from his neck. "Danny, you've got to stop worrying so much."

A classic line from the goth. The teen's arm went back to his side as she let go. "Yeah, but I just can't help it! We still don't know what Vlad and the others are up to... All we really know is that they're teamed up and plotting stuff."

"That's what they're always doing Danny." Tuck smirked, repeating what Jake and Randy said often to him. "Besides, you always stop Vlad before the world explodes, so we're all good."

"Yeah, but still." Danny rubbed his wrist, every time he had fun something bad happened. So, he had just learned to have fun planning and figuring out things so that nothing bad would happen to those who he cared about.

"Come on, we're gonna watch a movie." Sam smirked and grabbed both boy's wrists, turning them to the conveniently placed theater.

"Convenient." Tucker commented, "But it would be more fun at Sam's place."

"Would it?" Danny asked.

"Totally! It's _huge_! The acoustics in her decked-out basement are awesome. All the latest sound tech and everything."

"But Tuck, the theater is right there!" Sam was obviously flustered at the compliments, the tell tale sign being her abandonment of their wrists and an over-the-top motion towards said theater.

"Really? Maybe we should go to Sam's then." Despite knowing that Sam was rich, Danny hadn't actually been in her house yet. Yes, even to this day he hadn't stepped foot in it. Maybe he should though, since it was one of the few houses he hadn't been sent flying through. Maybe it was protected or something. Danny then imagined Sam sitting on her porch with a 'ghosts beware' sign and chuckled.

"He laughed!" Tucker practically shouted, pointing accusingly towards Danny.

"What? When?" Sam paused her outburst, turning owl-eyed.

Danny just blinked, the linger of a smile on his face.

"Oh! He did!" Sam grinned, throwing her hands up into the air. "It's a miracle!"

The halfa rolled his eyes, his friends were such dorks. "I wouldn't call it a miracle."

"But Danny, you haven't laughed for a long time! Even at the lake your laughs weren't real."

"What? Those were totally real!" Danny stiffened, retaliating.

Tucker walked over and placed a hand on Danny's shoulder. "You have a lot to learn buddy."

"About what?" Danny's voice flattened.

"Why, the difference between a real and fake laugh of course!" Tucker then laughed, "That one was fake- Sam, do something funny."

The goth didn't miss a beat and reached over to pinch Tucker.

"OW! That's wasn't funny!" Tuck rubbed his arm, eyeing the laughing Sam.

"I think it was hilarious."

"Let me guess, that one was real?" Danny pointed to Sam, his dry half-smile returning. "Sounded the same to me."

"Danny, Danny, Danny." Sam chided, placing her elbow awkwardly on his shoulder. "Look at you having fun. You sure you should be having fun right now?" She raised an eyebrow.

Danny's chipper mood rocketed into the core of the earth. What Sam said was right. He needed to get himself together and think about the situation.

"Aw, come on Danny, you know Sam was kidding right?" Tucker caught Danny's icy eyes. "You should have fun! People can't be serious all the time you know."

"Oh yeah, how do you know that?" Sam refused to remove her elbow despite the height difference making it look _really_ awkward.

"Sam, I have the internet."

"And everything on the internet is true, huh?"

"Of course!"

"Danny, what I'm trying to say is that having fun is fantastic, and you should have fun, but you're also a member of The Secret Trio. And let's be honest; Randy's going to get beat up and Jake is going to deal damage." Sam poked Danny in the chest. "But you? You're the one that will make sure the job is done and make those two shine. Sure you may not have as much raw power as Jake, or have bones of steel like Randy. But, you have a magnificent brain. Besides," Sam removed her arm, making Danny shift slightly. "We know that you love to make plans and figure stuff out. Don't force yourself to do something you don't want to do. Whether that be losing a battle or going to a party. Just be yourself, okay?"

The halfa just stood there for a moment, his mood rising a bit somehow. How did Sam manage to do that?

"I was totally going to say that too." Tucker commented in the silence, earning a scoff from Sam.

"Thanks guys." Danny smiled, for real this time. "I don't know what I'd do without you two and Jazz."

"Eh, probably flop over and wallow in your own pity."

"Naw, I think he'd follow his hero complex and save people."

"Why not both?" Sam shrugged, waving an arm. "Let's go find Jake and Randy."

* * *

This time, I had the chapter finished soon after the last post, but for some reason I didn't like it that much... I still don't honestly, but whatever!

I found what I don't like, but... I'm gonna keep it because, well, it needs to happen and yeah... Sorry if the Jake gang sounds outta place ehheh... But yeah, thanks for the R&Rs! I'll try to have the next chapter out in a timely manner so hopefully 2 months isn't too bad of a wait...? [coughs]

Congrats to WhiteScarletRose! You guessed it! Loguetown is from One Piece! 8D [holds out cookie] here ya are!

Also I apologize for not... responding to reviews like other authors do. I feel really bad about it, and I totally would reply to every one of your amazing comments, but... I don't think I want to put the responses in the stories and PMs are... Weird? I donno, it seems odd to me. However! I 100000000000000x10^infinity percent adore every single one of your reviews! You the audience fuel my fire and make me want to write more. So... Thank you so much. Til next time!


	29. Just Give Me A Leaf

~POV to Sorcerer (oo spooky)~

The disheveled green-skinned man idly hummed his grievances and drew circles in the ground. A large sigh drew from his being and he glanced towards the only creature that possibly cared or knew where he was: the rat. "It's so... _boring_ when I don't stank anyone." He sighed in defeat.

The rat scurried over to pat his knee.

The Sorcerer glanced to his little buddy, the faintest of smiles on his expression at the gesture. He opened his mouth to respond, only to roll his eyes and wave his hand.

"We have news oh great one!"

"Please, The Sorcerer is enough of a title for me." The Sorcerer huffed and turned to face McFist's green-tinted mug.

"We're getting closer to our end goal. We only have a few more ingredients left."

"Is that all you want to tell me?" The Sorcerer's eyes flared slightly. "I'm still not over you throwing that... _girl_ into the plan."

"But... Sorcerer... She has valuable information!" McFist didn't look very certain- or at least nervous, from his position in the swirling green mass of portal-communication.

"She might _endanger the ceremony_." The Sorcerer spat in response, his anger boiling to the surface. He stood, flames dancing along his hands.

"Yes, but we think that she's important to Danny Phantom! We could lure him and the trio right to us!"

"And why would we want to do that?" The Sorcerer's voice was drenched in venom. "We still have the advantage of surprise!"

"But I thought-"

"I TOLD YOU NOT TO THINK!" The Sorcerer shouted, the green mass of energy balling in his palms exploded at the outburst. The man then felt slightly bad, seeing that the rat just barely managed to scamper out of the flame's range. The fact that he felt bad then fueled his anger more. But, he took a calming breath and lowered his voice, the rage still evident. "...I'm the one who thinks here. Not you."

"I'm sorry-"

"Is that all you have to report?" The Sorcerer cut the man off once more.

"Not everything." The ancient being paused his rant when the previously silent scientist made his way forward. "Sorcerer, I think I have figured out the identity of the American Dragon."

The Sorcerer's eyes narrowed distrustfully. "And that matters to me because...?"

"It means we're more likely to figure out The Ninja's identity."

"...How?"

"We just have to follow the American Dragon and Danny Phantom's alter egos- find out who they're hanging out with."

The Sorcerer turned from the portal, thinking for a moment. He contemplated the benefits. It was definitely an intriguing notion, but the real test was whether they were right or not. And seeing how much the duo had failed him in the past, The Sorcerer was hesitant to trust that any of their plans would work. Besides, he didn't fully trust that... _Plasmius_ character. But then again... They _had_ managed to keep the potion creation on the down-low thus far... McFist keeping _anything_ secret was rather surprising and impressive. Vlad had played a large part in that, along with the Huntsman's reliable gathering. He turned to the scientist and billionaire once more. "Who is it and where's your proof?"

~Jazz POV~

Jazz peeled her ears as she attempted to overhear what McFist was talking about. By this time the girl had finished faking her unconsiousness, keeping her external emotions stern and steely. There was no way the villains were going to get information out of her. She'd been trying to get communication with Danny... Or, anyone really. McFist and Viceroy (Jazz had asked the other voice's name as soon as she "woke up"; earning a disgusted gasp and a disappointed introduction with a "How can you not know me?") had taken her phone and one of the Fenton Phones. She hoped and prayed that they didn't take apart the gizmo or do anything to connect Danny to Danny- er, that is, Phantom to Fenton. They hadn't seemed to do that yet, as they left the second phone determining that the device was useless separated from its pair. Of course, Jazz had swayed them to think that; again, her acting surprising her.

In her time here she had learned that Vlad, McFist, and some person named the Huntsman (the skull -he?- wore was more freaky in person, Jazz noticed) had teamed up and were... Baking something?

Regardless, Jazz had constantly been attempting to reach any of the trio, their company, and even the ops center. She had only received static. The teen bit her lip as she scooted closer to the wall, trying to hear the conversation. Despite being a prisoner, Jazz seemed to get around just fine. The gorillas were no match for her superior intellect and quickly succumbed to any tricks Jazz pulled off. At the moment, she was standing outside what she called the control room. It seemed to be where McFist- sorry, Viceroy came up with all of their plans. Today... They were talking to someone else? She fiddled with the Fenton Phones once more, trying to remember what Tucker told her about the upgrades.

She froze.

"The American Dragon is a boy named Jake Long."

Jasmine's world suddenly cracked, her body shuddered uncontrollably, complete helplessness and a disgusting feeling of knowledge slugging her thought train out of the way as the words were spoken. She hyper-concentrated on the words, her entire focus shifting to hear every tiny detail.

"How do you know?" Voice 3 asked with suspicion.

Jazz dared a peek into the room, her heart stopping and fingers trembling at the sight before her.

Viceroy had brought out a small iPad-like device (the McTab if Jazz remembered correctly) and pulled up a video.

"This is from one of the many bugs Plasmius planted around the school. Thankfully, this one made it back before someone or thing destroyed it." Viceroy chuckled, then coughed when he realized his joke wasn't well received. "Anyways, the other day it caught this."

Jazz's teal eyes widened in fear as Jake appeared on the grainy, black-and-white recording. He glanced around, then sullenly called forth his dragon form. The black-haired boy didn't even say his catchphrase... Not even a replacement was muttered under his breath. Her expression changed when it dawned on her what time this was- back when Danny was caught by Catfish. Despite not being with the group all the time, Jazz learned and heard about the boy's adventures. This particular one... She faintly remembered Jake talking about how worried he was- so worried, that he didn't even speak until he and Danny fought Booray. It was told as a joke at the time, but the memory only caused Jazz's knees to buckle.

The ginger took a sharp breath and refused to pass out, fumbling the Fenton Phone into her fingers. She shakily pressed every button she could find- then, a click went off in her head. It could record! The teen went to press the untouched, hidden button and stopped, shaking her head to calm her nerves. She forced her attention back onto the men in the room, determined to learn as much as she could. Afterwards she could always speak about what she saw.

"...Complications, so it couldn't return directly." Viceroy leaned forward and pet the bug that brought the information, "but it came home!" The scientist sighed. "Bugsy is loyal after all!"

The green man cringed, then interrupted Viceroy's... Petting. "Okay..." He was obviously disgusted by the action. "What's the status of the po-" He cut himself off with a groan. "With the cake. What's the status of the cake?"

"We have seven of ten collected, sir." McFist jumped forward, ushering Viceroy to put away the silly McTab. "Vlad's getting the peppermint and vanilla as we speak!"

At this, Voice 3 smiled, his wrinkly face making it seem rather nightmarish.

~Vlad POV~

"Back again dude?"

Vlad Masters glanced up from his cart, instantly slacking at the appearance of a child in a beanie.

"I got you last time!" The clerk looked happy.

"Yes, hello. Please, continue checking out." Vlad waved to the stuff he was buying. Most of it was random stuff on his shopping list, but the man eyed the most important item he purchased: peppermint. Well, that and the vanilla beans, but he could get those beans from anywhere really. This was the fifth store he went to for peppermint leaves. Who knew it would be so hard to find non-freeze-dried leaves?

"How'd your celebration go?" The beanie asked between reading out the prices.

"Actually, we haven't started yet. Delayed flight." Vlad easily smiled, his lie rather seamless to any normal person. How did he get stuck with this idiot of a clerk again? Wasn't this super rare for how big the mall-like store was?

"Aw man that sucks!" The beanie hummed, then blinked, his checking out paused when he spoke. "Oh, you know, my friend Jake also wants to celebrate soon." He shrugged, then continued, the peppermint finally reaching the bags. "Something about... A scar, a plan..." The teen shrugged again.

Vlad relaxed slightly, still eager to get the item back to the Sorcerer. He was sick of the small chores. He was sick of making this potion for the Sorcerer. The green man boasted about the ancient recipe, but Vlad wasn't sure it would work. How could a cake do anything? "A scar seems rather intense." Masters commented indifferently, impatient to get back. He wanted the bigger jobs. In terms of favoritism, the Huntsman was far beyond Vlad.

"Eh? Oh, it was by accident." The beanie frowned, like he had said too much. "That'll be $54.76. Do you want to round to $55.00 and donate to the local shelter?"

"Sure." Vlad brought out his wallet, one hand shifting to pay and the other loading the cart back up.

"The Fish 'n Bones appreciates your donation." The beanie kid gave another sloppy grin, Vlad no longer caring to try to read his nametag. He felt like he should, but pushed the idea away. There was no reason for him to fear this bumbling fool right?

"Have a good day Mr. Mayor."

Vlad glanced to the teen once more, his gaze flicking to read 'Arthur Spudinski'. "You too Arthur." The mayor gave a soft smile before taking his card, signing, and turning to his cart. His smile faded, replaced by a stern line. "You too."

* * *

Ooo hoo... Was not expecting the chapter to go like that! But, it's been revealed that the "baking" is actually the baddies making a cake! But is it a normal cake? What exactly is this confectionery delight? What are they planning? Aren't they getting a bit too close to succeeding in their plans?

And! Oh, man... Jake, you goofed! Back in Chapter 21! Now the baddies know who you are!

We're getting closer to the end... Do you feel that tension?

As always, thanks for reading and reviewing/commenting! Until next time! *tips hat*


	30. AN Spamming and Trivia - Important!

Hey everyone! Sorry that this isn't an update haha, I just wanted to get this out there as soon as possible!

So, lately, I've had a guest reviewer who posts a review several times a day/week. That in itself isn't a problem; it's the fact that it's the same review.

I 100% love and adore _everything_ you readers post for me, but I have to point out that I'm not too fond of spammers. I understand if you want to get my attention and get an answer to a question, or you're enthusiastic about the story! Both of those are highly acceptable, and I'll likely respond in the next chapter! I love answering questions and commenting about you guys! [insert cat smiley face haha]

But please, **please** don't post the same review more than twice. I understand if there's an accident and it sends it twice, that's happened to me too xD

The problem is when your review covers the page and you're the only one people see. I want everyone here to get a chance to be seen and read- because everyone deserves a voice!

And yes, I'll be able to tell who you are by your writing. I'm not going to say no to guests or users at all. Even if you change your username as a guest I'll know whether you're changing your username to say the same comment again or because you forgot/didn't want to log in.

At this point in time, all the reviews that say the same thing have been removed (minus the first one that was posted- Again, I understand if you want to be heard. That's not the problem). I'll be continuing to remove reviews deemed as spam (3+ reviews saying almost, if not exactly the same thing word for word) to reduce clutter on the review page.

Okay! Enough of that!

To answer some questions and give you guys some insight:

1\. Yes, I will update soon! I'm trying my best to write the chapters, my muse is just very on/off and I want to release chapters I'm proud of! Sorry for the really long waits vnv

2\. Yes, there will be a sequel to this fanfic! At the very least there will be a follow up story, but I'm thinking about making this a trilogy? [rubs chin thoughtfully]

3\. YES, I _will_ finish this story! As stated earlier, I have plans for a sequel and possibly trilogy. So, yes, no matter how long it takes me, this story _will_ be completed.

4\. One of the biggest reasons I'm thinking about making a trilogy is so that Danny and Randy can get some rad scars. Figured Jake would need some scar buddies. (May or may not also just be an excuse to make it three stories instead of two so I can do one scar per story and have it be a pattern teehee)

5\. One of the biggest setbacks for me writing is I don't know which perspective to write from! If you guys have ideas/a list of who you want to see more of let me know! I'd be glad to write from their perspectives!

6\. Heck yeah I'll take suggestions for the story! Of course, they have to make sense, but if you want like a small cameo or a small, random, and funny event to happen I'll do it!

7\. I'm going to try and up the quality of writing in the sequel. Especially saying that this specific story has been around since 2013 (wow it's old) I should be writing at least the quality level of these last few chapters!

8\. This... Is my first story story haha. I have character stories (like, OC's) but I got bored/got stuck with them so I stopped writing them. This is the longest I've ever continuously written something. It's actually boosted my self-esteem and I might go on to writing my own original story!

9\. This fanfic was created on a whim xD

10\. According to my plans, we only have 9 chapters left!

Aaaaaaand that's all for now folks! Thanks so much for your continued support, and until next time, bye! 8D


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